


Rubicon

by stardustcatharsis



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Force Bond (Star Wars), Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Romance, Rough Sex, Sex, Sexual Tension, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-05
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-18 09:34:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14850257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustcatharsis/pseuds/stardustcatharsis
Summary: Life and Death are intertwined, ebbing and flowing in between time and space. One cannot exist without the other, and they are damned to dance side by side, but never truly be together.Yet, every millennia they are given the opportunity to live out mortal lives to bring balance to the universe and restart the cycle anew.Each incarnation forgets, only to have their past lives manifesting in their dreams until their destinies have been fulfilled.





	1. Prologue/Lethe

**Author's Note:**

> I've been dabbling with this story for a while and I really wanted to go ahead and post the prologue. I hope it makes sense. I'm garbage with summaries. 
> 
> But I was inspired by the comic of Life giving Death gifts, and I wish I remembered the creators but I do not take credit for that inspiration. 
> 
> Happy reading. ♡

 

There is a world between worlds. A world where our ghosts, our dreams, our memories all intertwine.

 

They lock like fingers knitting themselves together too afraid to let go. They are steadfast in the quiet, ever present in the chain. There is balance there. 

 

It exists in the in between. That is home. The carriers, the guardians, the merchants that guide the very souls of the living reside there. 

 

Two of which you know very well.  _Life_ is a beautifully small creature. She gives her heart to nurture the souls of the living and soothes their aches as she waits for  _Death_ to come. 

 

When she feels his presence in those to which she tends, her small hands guide them through the shadows so they are not alone. 

 

_Death_ awaits her in the Valley. His eyes look for her as she stands on the other side of the river.  It divides them, always. 

 

Millennia has not changed this. 

 

Death wants her. He feels her light and steals glimpses of her as their paths never meet. They cross, they are parallel, but never together. 

 

He accepts the life she can no longer sustain and wisks it away into the darkness. Each star is a soul that was born from the infinity of their existence. And he paints constellations for Life to gaze upon as she leaves him for her place upon the Mountain. 

 

He has never seen her face. And longs to touch the flesh, whatever it may be, that houses the bone beneath it. 

 

He clutches his fist as the burning light of the soul is cast into a glistening pool before emerging in the distance. She always noticed, and he watched her at a distance. 

 

She sat beneath the drapery of white and watched the galaxies collide around her. He had never heard her voice. It would probably sound like everything all at once. He thought he might enjoy the melodious song that he imagined she would sing. 

 

Death swallowed, staring at his creation. The stars hung like animals that he had been given, and he sat upon his withered throne. Removing his dark cloak, his black hair spilled around the pallidness of his face. 

 

He had never seen his own face and wondered for a moment if Life would like it. The pads of his fingers spread over the knooks and crannies of his jaw. The protruding slope of his nose seemed large, like his lips as he slicked his thumb over the tender flesh. 

 

He glanced over his shoulder, barely seeing the faintest illumination from Life's throne. She was a galaxy herself. She was a becon of hope and light that he desperately wanted to consume. 

 

They were damned to dance side by side, and he had grown tired. Sadness besieged him as he peered into his glowing pools, soft with a foggy pale blue light. There were flickering images of humans, humanoids, animals, insects, the entirety of life all blurring together. 

 

They had no idea that he watched them. They would come to him. They always did. Only when Life decided to steal a soul and send it back to the world of the living did he fail to complete his task. 

 

She did quite often. 

 

An itch in his bones caused him to cease creating stars. Though he was Death, he did give Life, he mused.

 

For a moment, he felt the disturbance calling to him like a siren. It was a pull he knew well. Without thought, he sprang to his feet and glided towards the River.

 

Through the bleakness of his realm, he found her with her hand outstretched. He could not reach her, and his own hand trembled as he stared at the landscape that hid behind her small frame. 

 

Death stood on the embankment, so close that he could be grasped by the souls that reached out for him - just as  _she_ did. 

 

For a moment, he had all but forgotten that his cloak was not masking his face. He felt the warmth of her from where he stood. 

 

_It was time._

They needed _balance._

This was the only gift they were ever given. And has he outstretched his own hand, spreading his fingers wide, he held it out for her. 

 

The distance between them was staggering but he could swear he could  _feel_ her touch him. Life flinched as she removed her own hood, flicking it back to reveal a pair of dark eyes. 

 

He gasped, knowing she was inspecting him. Her cheeks were marked with a constellation of freckles he wanted to trace. 

 

A strangled sound emitted from his throat. He wanted to speak. Nothing came out. It was just a deep foreign thrum he didn't recognize. 

 

The aeons that passed had not prepared him for her beauty. And he longed for a way to have her. Though, if she stepped into the River, she would become a star. 

 

He couldn't bear it and looked behind him. Life retracted her hand as though she were wounded, waiting for him to make contact. Her brows furrowed in disappointment. 

 

Death took a few steps back, knowing that this was not going to work as though he had planned. His long strides became succinct as he sprinted to the edge of the River. 

 

Life stared in dismay. Her mouth hung ajar as she watched his long body catapult into the living realm. 

 

She reached out once more, nearly screaming at the cold of his hand in hers. Life frantically tried to move, but found herself catatonic. 

 

Death howled at the heat of her and smiled weakly as his mind went blank. 

 

_Time was up._

He fell to the ground, clutching her hand in his. At least he had gotten to  _feel_ her. At least he had  _held_ her. There was fire in the heat of her skin that he could not recall. 

 

Life grinned brightly as she fell alongside him. Her body was stiff as she hazily stared at the sea of stars that engulfed them. 

 

Sound became infinite and sank into the pits of her bones as she became one with the universe  _again._

_It was the thrill of it she loved._

Death never remembered, but she did. Every century that passed since man created the concept of time, Life waited for Death to come. 

 

He always did, even for  _her._

For when they became stars, reborn in the same hemisphere, they would fall upon an unknowing planet until they found one another as they brought balance to life itself. 

 

And in that, Life sprang anew. And Death swept beneath her currents, waiting until she could be pulled into his grasp. 

 

 

                    -----------------------------------

 

Rey awoke from her sleep feeling particularly stiff. She had  _that_ dream again. Her hands rubbed the sleep from her eyes, though her heart thundered anxiously. 

 

"It's just a dream." She murmured, sluggishly making her body move through her usual morning routine. A pot of coffee was already made for her and she thanked the heavens for her best friend. 

 

Finn left a note on the table and she grinned. He was a good person with a good heart. His gruff boyfriend had softened up because of it, and Rey found solace in the way they complimented one another.

 

She longed for that. Maybe that was what caused her such portentous dreams. Loneliness was a thing she knew well, and the idea of love made her tick. 

 

The girl never had much, but she made it work. Parts of her life were blurred into forgotten blank spaces that she couldn't connect and she sighed. 

 

Rey idly got ready for work and dressed in her grease stained coveralls and snapped on her identification badge. She worked at a plant assembling machines and she loved every second of it. 

 

Knowing that busted pieces of metal could have a life of their own gave her a sense of purpose. They became whole in her hands, and fit into newly created bodies. She loved them and all of the ways they moved like clockwork when they amalgamated. 

 

It was laborious all the same. And the long hours seemed to stitch themselves into her spare time, but she didn't truly mind. 

 

Rey was the last person on her crew each day. She sat beneath a bright white light, tinkering with dark smudges creasing along her cheeks. The solitude was very much like home, more so than she even truly understood. 

 

As she walked to her beat up car, one she had fixed herself, she sighed as she hunkered down at the wheel.  It was then that her dreams crept into the back of her mind. 

 

The car came to life, and she peeled out into the rainy night as it rolled in from the west. The moisture slicked in flickering reds and greens as she passed through the intersections in the haze of the night.

 

She stared vacantly at the funeral home that rested at the end of the road. It looked more ominous in the rain and she hated it. It pulled at her heart having to drive by it everyday. 

 

_Such is life._ The girl mused as she felt dread rising in her throat. She held her breath as her rickety car sputtered by. She had never seen anyone outside until tonight.

 

Rey turned down her music as she edged closer, watching a tall man dressed in a fine black suit. He held an umbrella as he stumbled along with a long hair. She pumped her brakes as she hit a red light that spilled across her face. 

 

She saw him closer while he took down letters on the sign. Idly, she inspected his face and the strangeness of it. Rey was uncertain if he saw her, but she was hyper aware of his familiarity. It made her stomach knot as she sped off, leaving him behind.

 

By the time she got home, the girl showered and changed into slummy clothes. She enjoyed her torn up shorts and shirts. They were some of the only surviving memories of her parents. She couldn't remember much of them. 

 

Finn was home and made her a hot cup of tea as he listened to her yammering about work and the new machines she'd built. He smiled warmly at her, his dark eyes crinkling at her excitement as he sat down at the small, round table. 

 

"Oh, Finn." Rey said, brushing a hand through her damp hair. "I had that dream again." 

 

"Seems like it's been happening a lot. I think you just need a companion, sweetheart. You've been in a tizzy about it for a while." Finn responded as he gave her a knowing look. He had lived with her long enough to know she wouldn't let the idea go. 

 

She rolled her tawny eyes and scrunched her freckled nose. "Finn, you know what's even weirder?"

 

"What?" He asked, peeking his eyebrows boyishly. 

 

Rey chewed at her lip for a moment before closing her eyes. There was a weight crushing her as she recalled the man's face and his distinctive features. 

 

"You know the man from the Scariff Funeral Home?" Rey asked, keeping her eyes closed as she wrapped her fingers around her warm cup. 

 

The man adjacent to her scoffed slightly. "Yes. I've seen him. That seems off topic."

 

Rey pinned him with a glare. "No, I've never seen him until today but I've  _seen_ him."

 

She sounded crazy. Finn was definitely giving her the  _look_ now. 

 

"He looks similar to the man I've dreamt about. I've never set foot inside of a funeral home despite how everyone around me died." Rey said mockingly. She seemed to adjust to uncomfortable topics that way. And she knew her roommate was having none of her shit. 

 

With a sigh, Finn dragged a heavy hand over his mouth and rolled his eyes. It wasn't that he didn't necessarily believe her, more so that he would have to wrangle all of her bad decisions. 

 

"Anyway," Rey cleared her throat, "I saw him and I haven't stopped thinking about it. I  _know_ him somehow."

 

Finn reached out to squeeze the girl's hand. "Maybe you've seen him in town." 

 

Rey pushed out a sigh before  _accepting_ her friend's rational response. Finn rubbed her head before he headed out for dinner. It was late but Poe was a shift worker and spent most of his nights at the hospital.

 

Rey loved that he was a nurse. Despite his fiery temperament, he was passionate and aligned in all of the right ways. She envied his abilities to help people and save their lives, just like doctors and medics.

 

It made her love of creating machines seem so pointless, and she relented to it. She wanted to go back to that life, but it seemed to far out of reach now - just like the man in her dreams. 

 

The rumbling in her stomach alerted her that she, too, should probably get dinner. Answering the call was a greasy burger from the hole in the wall diner at the end of the block. 

 

She huddled alone in the corner of the retro restaurant and people watched. Her jacket hid the majority of her small frame from equally as inquisitive eyes. 

 

It had taken her a moment before noticing the man sitting along the opposing row. Her mouth hung ajar as she held her burger high above the plate. 

 

The man looked at her as he idly picked at a salad and a cup of fruit. He looked bored until he saw her man-handling her food. Rey's eyes were wide, a little nervous that  _he_ was in such close proximity. 

 

She took a bite and quickly looked away, saving herself from any further eye contact. A blush hit her cheeks. She cast a discreet glance at him again to admire his long face. 

 

The collar of his black button-down was undone, freeing his throat of a corporate noose. His silver stitched tie rested about his broad shoulders. 

 

Rey chewed at her lip for a moment. She was suddenly aware of every nerve in her body and she wasn't privy to it. Finn may have though she was crazy, but she wasn't. 

 

He was stealing just as many glances of her. She felt him drawing her in from across the checkered tiling. There was  _something_ she couldn't quite place. 

 

Had she really see him before? It was strange enough to have seen him twice in one day. But, Rey imagined she she would have remembered. 

 

_Maybe I am being stupid._ She scolded herself, wiping the grease off her fingers with her jeans. She definitely wasn't a  _lady._

This did garner attention, and she was astutely aware of it. She wasn't going to be anything than what she was, and that was a  _mess._

_A living, breathing mess._

 

Life wasn't about perfection. Life was for wiping your dirty hands on jeans, and running away in the middle of the night to stare at the stars, or playing in the rain. 

 

And she stopped to wonder what the man must have been thinking. She was a bold person, despite the absence of a role model to teach her assertiveness and social cues. 

 

Here sat the man she had dreamt of, and she was hesitant to even speak. She ran a hand through her chestnut colored hair and smiled to herself.

 

She was about to shake the entire situation off when the man pushed himself to his feet to stand tall above his booth.  He was larger up close, with broad shoulders and a full head of dark hair that fell in his face. 

 

Instinctively, Rey's vision shot upwards with him to match his height. 

He smirked at her as he laid his money on the table, absently shucking a bill on her table. She briefly furrowed her brows at it, wondering if he thought she looked too poor to pay. 

 

"You look familiar." He said with a cool, heavy voice that reverberated through her bones. It snapped her attention to him. Their eyes met for a breft moment. 

 

Her heart shot into her throat. Her head cycled through her thoughts as she tried to remember  _anything_ about him, other than the freckles and dark beauty marks punctuating his odd features. 

 

"I've seen you before, but I don't know where." She blurted. 

 

The heaviness of his scrunity was eased when he rapped his knuckles along the Formica table top. "You're not from around here, are you?" He asked, letting his eyes roll over the girl. The accent was a telltale sign. 

 

She sank into her booth, furrowing her brows as she tried to think of anything to say other than a simple "No."

 

"I'm not either." He said, "I ended up here a few years ago.  Most people that  _see_ me are  _dead."_ He gestured to a silver engraved name tag for the Scariff Funeral Home and he seemed like he was proud of it. 

 

Rey leaned forward. She wanted to run her fingers over the faintest scar that partitioned the halves of his face while he talked. When her eyes fell over the nametag, she was surprised that his name was so simple. 

 

"Ben?" She asked. 

 

He nodded his head, biting his lower lip awkwardly. She could smell the embalming fluids on him and his cologne that somehow fused with it. 

 

"Rey." 

 

Ben cast one last glance at her. "I'll see you around, Rey." 

 

With that, he was gone. He left her sitting in the booth, watching his lumbering form disappear like a ghost through the jingling front door. 

 

She closed her eyes, trying to steady the nerves that had suddenly decided to burn. She wasn't crazy, after all. 

 

Part of her wanted to follow him, despite the stern screaming in the back of her mind to stay put. Foreboding signs didn't scare her, and she shook them off as she grabbed her bag. 

 

 Recon work seemed more interesting than sitting at home alone. 

 

 

                      ----------------------------------

 

Little did she know that Ben slumped against the building's facade. He ran a finger through his collar, as though it still choked him. His mind was a flurry of emotion, matching the color nestled in the hollows of his cheeks. 

 

A wave rolled through him and he exhaled the anxious breath he was holding. He had dreamt about  _her._

Not  _her_ specifically, but the semblance of her. He reminded himself. The girl in his dreams had the same freckled face, tanned from years in the sun and a warmth in her smile that could melt the cold in his bones. 

 

She was a beaming ray of hope. A heavy hand flicked drizzle from his face as it dampened his skin. It soothed him as his body went slack. 

 

A certain unrest rattled within him as he stared at his black leather shoes. What would she have said to him had she known? It was all a coincidence anyway, he reminded himself. 

 

You can't dream of people you haven't seen before. It was absurd to think science couldn't explain the similarities between Rey and the hooded woman he spent his sleeping hours with. Rationally, he had probably seen her at the coffee shop or at the market. 

 

But, Ben glowered at the thought. He would have remembered her. He straightened himself and reopened his umbrella as he waltzed down the street to his apartment down the road. 

 

He didn't spend exorbent amounts of money for his therapy to  _not_ work. It had curbed his emotional breakdowns and the medication soothed the live wires dancing in the back of his mind. 

 

It was his own personal hell. He was uncertain of his marriage, which was flapping on the edge of a hinge. The last thing he needed was a distraction from trying to rebuild his decaying life. 

 

But, as Ben stared at the high-rise entrance, he caught his reflection in the murky glass. He looked so strange. Every time he looked at himself -- really inspected the lines across his face or the emptiness in his eyes-- he began to wonder why everything he touched  _died._

That was precisely why he chose to be an embalmer. He chose to work with the dead, because the living didn't seem too keen on him. A sigh ruptured from his lungs as he let the umbrella fall. 

 

The chill of the rains fingers slithered along his exposed skin and he basked in it. He needed some sort of escape. He would enter the tall, ornate building alone. 

 

He would ride the elevator to the third floor  _alone._ Inside, the large minimalistic apartment, he felt most alone. 

 

There were no children. There were no pets. No signs of life, which meant his wife was surely out living her own life while he died silently.  

 

Ben watered himself down, pretending to be a better man than he actually was. He longed for something better as he sifted through his sleek cabinetry for his whisky. 

 

For now, he would sleep alone in his plush, oak bed and drown himself in what little he had left. 

 

All he wanted was to remember  _anything_ from his dreams. The stars, the moon, the burning light that came from the woman he saw. His doctor said that dreams manifest the things you want, and that perfection is never attainable. 

 

Perhaps Rey was just the embodiment of the girl he saw, with a constellation of freckles and a head full of loose curls. 

 

The alcohol hit his stomach as he undressed and climbed into bed. Maybe he shouldn't think so much. 

 

Maybe he shouldn't hope for anything better than solitude. It was all he had ever known, to be truthful. And when he closed his own eyes, he wished that he could be taken back to that place in amongst the galaxy where he could coexist. Even if he never could catch her, he enjoyed the chase. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Crossing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much! I hope that you like this chapter. I'm going to do my best to update all of my work regularly again since work is slowing down.   
> I appreciate all of the feedback I've received so far. ♡ you guys are amazing.

 

Rey wasn't necessarily one for  _stalking_ but she did end up  _casually_ walking behind Ben. She was precarious, and that was her down fall. She had a lot of strengths, but she had a bad habit of getting herself into trouble from time to time.

 

The bustling street made it easy for her to remain a faceless entity and just another pedestrian in the throngs that glided along the sidewalk. 

 

When she found him, he was dejected and seemed to laze about the outside of what she assumed to be his apartment. It was far more upscale than the side of town she resided, but she wasn't surprised. 

 

Sometime after arriving home, Finn had nestled on the couch to watch a film while she cleaned up. She kept Ben to herself, hoping that she wouldn't have to hear her friend's rationalizations. 

 

Rey knew eventually she would have to let it go. For now, however, the mortuary man was her little secret. There wasn't much of a secret to tell, but stalking wasn't something she was privy to sharing. 

 

She wondered if her dreams had been omens? Rey didn't necessarily believe in past lives or any of that mumbo jumbo, but she believed whatever manifested in her subconscious. 

 

She rubbed her eyes. 

 

Sleep was inevitable. Work was inevitable. 

 

Rey blew away a loose tendril of hair as she said her goodnight to Finn. She climbed onto her twin sized bed, and shucked her jeans on the floor. She was messy, but at least she knew where everything was.

 

Flipping off her light, she settled into the darkness, clutching a pillow close to her chest. She pushed Ben to the back of her mind and let sleep take her.

 

Rey didn't know how her life would change, or how extraordinary she would become. All that mattered was that the world inside of her subconscious linked within  _his_ dreams.

 

It had always been. 

 

Even as a child, Ben dreamt of fantastical worlds and people and creatures. Everything was vivid enough to recall even into adulthood.

 

Rey's were no different. For as long as memory served, there was the darkness that followed the light as though it haunted her.

 

Life would cultivate and sew creations far beyond anything the human mind could imagine. Every minute detail was sewn into the dark tapestry and swallowed it before it was eventually repurposed. 

 

Ben envied Death. He envied his love and the feelings that pulsed through the very tips of his fingers. Bewilderment besieged him, even in his sleep. 

 

For there, amongst a starlight garden that bloomed like glowing flora, stood  _Rey_. She was admiring his what he had sewn. 

 

Her hair was longer, falling about her waist. The red dress was ornate, like the golden pieces that flaked around her cheeks and temples. 

 

It was different from the pallid cloak, but he relished it all the same. She dressed like a reformation queen lost in an Astrid sea. 

 

Ben was stoic in a 19th century dandy-like suit. Some nights, Rey noted he wore less or more. Some nights his long face was darkened by patches of hair. 

 

The Valley was the same. She never saw past their surroundings as they danced on opposite sides of the The River.  They were the same figures, all adorned in different eras, different planets, different galaxies garb.

 

Yet, the bodies remained the same. The dream ended in its usual cycle. Hands outstretched over the River, longing to hold the other. Death believing it was the first time they met, despite Life knowing that somewhere deep within her memories that she  _knew_ him.

 

It repeated for days. Rey had thought she was going mad as she tried to think of anything but the moonstruck serenade looping in her mind. She couldn't focus at work and it drove her mad. 

 

Each day became harder as the familiar nagging sensation began to grow. She had sat at her station, working with maladroit motion. She slammed the pieces on the table and relented to the sweat slicking across her brow. 

 

She wanted to sleep. Though, she knew that she could easily walk into the funeral home. She knew, equally so, that she very well could not. 

 

A termination slip entered her hand before the end of next day. Her shortcomings had become a regular occurencene and was dually noted by her superiors. 

 

The pink slip seemed to be daunting and the death of the life she has known.

 

That was ultimately the distraction that she needed to hide from the never-ending cosmos blooming inside of her mind. 

 

Finn remarked at how well she handled the entire situation, and that her back up plan --  an account of savings -- would ultimately save her. 

 

Rey was a scavenger and salvaged every cent she could. She worked most of her life, and didn't have a need for extravagant things. 

 

It did break her heart to leave her machines, but the optimism of something subjectively  _better_ lingered strongly. 

 

As for Ben, she wondered what his life had been like. It was far more opulent in her head than his reality, truthfully. 

 

Over the passing weeks, he had devolved. His anger brimming at the surface like the ugly scar still cutting his cheek. His wife was having an affair, which was unsurprising. She had slept with a coworker of his.

 

And having to stare into those dull, dark eyes day in and day out made his stomach knot.  He worked at his station, talking to a dead woman who needed multiple layers of reconstruction. 

 

She looked like Cassian did in his mind; porous and wounded with mangled skin flecked along his face. But, respectfully, Ben knew he couldn't compare the two. 

 

This woman was killed on impact in a car accident two night before, and Cassian would be grated against the pavement. Those were two completely different set of markings and skills. For such a gentle man, Ben had violence teeming in his blood.

 

He wiped his brow and set the woman's photo on the cold metal table. The bright white light shining off of her clean imagine like a sliver of hope. He could make her look like they remembered once the casting set; use  _her_ makeup and give her some sort of warmth. 

 

A sigh escaped him as he pulled off his black gloves and smock. He tossed them in the hamper and sad his goodbyes for the evening and headed out, ignoring Cassian standing at the entrance.

 

Seeing him holding a box of tissues for patrons with a soft expression made Ben cringe. Cassian was nothing short of becoming Judas in a fitted suit and a dashing smile. 

 

He didn't say a word as he grabbed his coat and left the building. When the door shut behind him, a wave of relief came. It weighted his long limbs to the ground. A hand brushed across his face, still ripe with the sterile scent of his soaps and the latex glove. 

 

His phone buzzed with his wife's face lighting up the background. He glowered at it. Jyn didn't love him like she used to, yet he wanted to make it work.

 

All of his life he had hoped that he would find someone to share his interests. Though, the only _person_ he shared anything with was a fictious martyr. 

 

On this particular evening, Ben wound up at the Hudson River park. Pier 84 was covered with people listening to the raspy caw of jazz musicians voices, and he relished in his ability to blend amongst the pedestrians. 

 

It was cool out, with the night close to blanketing the city scape behind it. Some teenagers giggled and flirted with boys their age and he felt ill watching them as he passed. 

 

By the time he reached the railing that overlooked the murky water, his phone buzzed once more. Jyn's crooked grin made him angry enough to fling his phone into the water. It would suffer the same fate as Henry Hudson. 

 

Ben grunted. His hands undid the fee buttons that strangled him as he panted. It felt like release. There was nothing tethering him to the earth as he closed his eyes. 

 

He breathed in the polluted air as though it was clean, crisp like the freshness he found in the mountains. Maybe behind the lids of his eyes he could see  _her_ and forget about the woes of his own world. 

 

His long fingers wrung around the railing, feeling the chill against his skin. He wanted to jump. It was the first time in years that he had felt compelled to be so injurious, so selfish. 

 

If he wouldn't have become a spectator sport, he may have done it. But as his polished shoe hit the railing, a vaguely familiar voice tore him from his agony. 

 

Quickly, he snapped his head in its direction. At the vendor, he found Rey. She was wearing a blue-plaid dress with a large cardigan that swept about her knees, making her look abysmally small. 

 

Her face was wide and bright with a smile as he she held an ice cream cone in her hand. The girl's laugh tore through him as he brushed shaking hand through his hair. 

 

It was only a moment before she had noticed him and stiffened, but her smile remained. The bright white fluorescent lights from the street lamps beamed around her as though she stood beneath the moon itself. 

 

Ben took a deep breath as she made her approach. Looking casual was nothing that he could honestly do, and he was certain he was already making a fool of himself. 

 

"Fancy seeing you amongst the living." Rey said, her voice sweet and charming as her eyes fell on his nametag. She came here to clear her mind, not see the person that plagued it. 

 

Yet, here she was; engaging in conversation. Scolding herself was on the top of her list. 

 

"I, uh," Ben cleared his throat. "I am equally surprised that I came here. I usually don't do this. I hate it here. I'm not exactly fond of interacting unless I  _have_ to." 

 

He was awkward and poised in a way that made Rey's imagination run rampant. She could be anyone she wanted to be, or pretend to be so much more than she was. The excitement of seeing this man again made her nerves jostle to life. 

 

"I like watching people have a good time, even if I'm not myself. I know I've only talked to you once, but I feel like you should have more fun." Rey said as she lapped at the monstrosity of an ice cream cone. 

 

Ben pressed his mouth into a tight line. His eyes wandered over her as she slumped beside him on the railing. He didn't know what it was about her that was so magnetizing. 

 

"I have  _fun._ It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I have hobbies." He shrugged, placing his cheek in the palm of his hand.

 

Rey thought he looked dreadfully boring. The version of him in her dreams seemed far more enthusiastic. 

 

"I don't even know you, but I can tell you aren't a happy man." She said, eying him with fervor. 

 

His cheeks bled with color as he looked back down at the water. He made a particular face she had seen before, but only when her dreams allowed it.

 

"Are you this insufferable with everyone or do you get your rocks off when you find the most depressed person you can?" Ben bit. His deep voice rumbled in his chest and the look of disdain and irritation settled upon his features.

 

Rey narrowed her eyes, "I would like to think that empathy goes a lot further than pushing people away. I like to think I'm at least positive enough to help people. I like to make things grow, not kill them." She retorted as she licked her fingers clean of the confection.

 

Ben raised his body tall above hers. He stood close enough to touch her, but didn't. She wasn't at all like he imagined she would be and he crossed his arms. Trying to read her was one thing, but her tenacity in assumptions was a burden.

 

"You've spoken to me  _once._ That accumulated to a five minute conversation about how I thought you looked familiar. There is no reason to speak to me." He said before he could stop himself. Biting his tongue was not his forte. Despite the urge to run, panic, hyperventilate for this was far too strange, was an overwhelming sensation. 

 

It was hard to look at her.  _It felt wrong._ Jyn would have been heartbroken. 

 

_Two years ago she would have been._ He sighed when he noticed Rey wasn't going anywhere. 

 

"How else are you supposed to get to know people if you aren't persistent? There's a whole life out there." She gestured towards the other side of the river and stared at the yellow lights flickering on in the tall buildings. 

 

Her pull was getting to him. 

 

"Why do you think I'm unhappy?" Ben asked, his lips plump and weighted with a scowl. Rey was certain he would be more handsome if he smiled. 

 

"You can see it in your eyes." She said, briefly bringing her own to meet his. He flinched and she grinned in a way that made his stomach flutter. "I think there's a lot more to you than just being a moritician. Besides, I think you need to live a little."

 

"Living is subjective. My life is perfectly fine." Ben lied, finding it in himself to walk away. The music became louder, drowning out Rey's voice and he tried to focus on anything  _but her._

He should have just gone home. Yet, as he rounded the sidewalk, he glanced over his shoulder to find the girl fluttering about in time with the beat. She swayed on the tips of her toes and danced with a girl twice as tall as she was. 

 

He stood still watching her, wondering why this was so confusing. She read him like a book within seconds and never felt the urge to lie to her about any of it. 

 

Part of him wanted to stay and run and let himself bleed into her world. That would poison it. He would ruin her like he did everything. 

 

Ben kicked the flowers on the incline and cursed beneath his breath. He had a wife at home. He didn't need to be playing games with some little girl. 

 

He would chew her up and spit her out and she would be dilapidated like the crumbling facade of the life he had. 

 

But watching her... that was a spectacle in itself. She was like an untamed creature, pouring her infectious light amongst people she didn't know. They laughed with her, smiled with her, glowed in her wake as she brushed her hands through the loose curls that hung about her face. 

 

She was beautiful in a way that he didn't understand. He wanted that feeling.  _That_ was the freedom he longed for all of his life.  _That_ was the girl he yearned for in his sleep. 

 

And without thinking, Ben wove through the throngs of people and said her name. The girl snapped her head up from the game she played with a younger girl. 

 

Her smile waned, but never faded as her flush cheeks listened with sweat. It made him nervous. It was the first time in years he had felt like a teenager. She stirred that emotion in him and he felt like she knew it. 

 

"Yes?" She quipped, raising to meet his gaze. She was nervous. All that lived in her was to scream about how many times she had seen him, how many nights she spent wanting to see some semblance of him. 

 

"What is your favorite animal?" Ben asked, keeping himself in check. It was an abrupt question, but an important one. 

 

He swallowed, watching her think for a moment. Rey closed her eyes trying to remember her dreams. She was fond of birds and their elegance, but hummingbirds were abundant. 

 

"Hummingbirds." She said. "They are small and buzz around looking for sweetness and live with urgency."

 

Ben almost laughed at how innocent of an answer it was. Rey followed him towards the end of the sidewalk as a chill ran through her. 

 

"I would have expected something completely different, but it makes sense." He shrugged, finding his car parked near the entrance. 

 

Rey scrunched her nose. "Yours has to be an owl. They're mysterious, nocturnal and also have a knack for handling the dead." She sounded like a Psychic he heard on infomercials.

 

Ben smirked. It was close enough to the smile she wanted. "It's unnerving that you know that. I don't like when people get in my head like that." He half-heartedly teased.

 

Rey bit her lip, reaching for her keys. "It's part of my charm." She teased. She looked up at him. They stood a foot apart, and her heart thundered in her throat. 

 

Ben nodded, swallowing the tension that somehow held him spellbound. His body leaned closer. The night spilled over them, and the wind rustled.

 

A flicker of his own dreams tore through him.

The River, the garden of light that separated them - it snapped him back to reality, and he nodded. 

 

"Maybe I'll see you around." The man said, running his spiderlike fingers down his throat. 

 

Rey withdrew, her eyes burning with disappointment. "Since I was terminated, I've had a lot of time on my hands. I'm everywhere. "

 

Ben immediately felt like he was omen. It must have happened after they met. It would make sense considering everything and everyone he came in contact with disintegrated. 

 

"I better get going." He said, easing away from the girl. His head was filled with things he could have said, should have said and done. 

He slumped over the steering wheel, hitting his head on the upper ring.

 

"You are a fucking moron." Ben hissed to himself.  He watched her walk through the parking lot while his self deprecation ate him alive. "You fuck everything up. You could have told her you were married, you fucking asshole." 

 

He slumped back in his seat. Going home to Jyn meant facing reality. It meant seeing his failures up close and he would have rather had a sliver of Rey's light than to suffer his darkness alone. 

 

He wanted to chase after her. He didn't even know her, but the promise of what she offered - even if it was a manifestation of his subconscious desires. 

 

"Oh hey, I'm Ben, I've had dreams about a girl who looked just like you." He mocked himself, grimacing as he finally cranked his car. "I'm clearly not a piece of shit with mental problems."

 

After he calmed down, he peeled out of the parking lot. It had been a while since he smoked a cigarette, but he needed it. The scale pack in his glove box were good for something, he supposed. 

 

The nicotine made him nauseous as he drove down the block. It had taken all of his composure to keep from wrecking his car as he cough. He pulled over, practically kicking his door open to vomit. 

 

He threw the cigarette and prayed that someone would take his head off as he leaned out the door. The chilly early fall air soothed him as he wretched. 

 

His lungs burned, and his face was red. He brushed his mouth with the back of his hand as he heard footsteps becoming louder. 

 

"Ben?" Rey called, furrowing her brows. She reached into her purse and extended a bottle of water. "Why are you vomiting outside of my apartment?"

 

The embarrassment burned him as he sat up, futilely attempting to catch his breath. He hesitated to take the water, but eventually did. Guzzling it down, he crushed the plastic in his palm. 

 

"I smoked a cigarette and I haven't touched them since I started therapy." He grumbled. 

 

Rey jingled her keys. "Well, they kill you. It did its job."

 

"That's the point." He retorted, staring up at her through a messy blanket of hair. It made her stomach knot. He looked at her with such intensity she had all but forgotten anything other than him.

 

"You shouldn't want to die. I can't change your mind, and I don't know how you feel. But I can tell you that your therapy doesn't look like it's working." She breathed, feeling pity for him.

 

"You cannot be serious right now." Ben quipped.

 

"Extremely." She said, "I'm going home. I'll see you around when you're in a better mood."

 

Instinctively, Ben jumped out of his crookely parked car to examine the lines. He wanted to savor every second he could with her. 

 

"So, you live really close to me." He noted, waving a hand as casually as he could. 

 

Rey rolled her eyes, giving him a knowing glance. "Yes, I do." She wasn't about to admit she knew that he lived in the nice high-rise on the other side of the river. 

 

"I'm married." He blurted, swallowing loudly enough for her to hear over the cars whooshing by. 

 

"I know. I saw the ring." Her voice was soft, more gentle. It held a hint of sadness, but he wasn't sure if it was for him or his wife. "I don't know what kind of person you think I am, but I'm not a homewrecker."

 

Ben winced. His heart felt like it may burst. He wanted to say anything to make it better. He had no real reason to, other than to fulfil his own fantasies. "I just..." he sighed, "I just wanted to be honest with you."

 

Rey smiled weakly. Her eyes punctured him like daggers. "If you're standing her justifying your marriage to me, then shouldn't you have been at home? You owe me nothing. I have only spent a handful of hours with you now."

 

"Yeah, but I feel like I know you from somewhere. It's been in the back of mind since I saw you at the diner." Ben exhaled, finding the same startled expression on her face. She stumbled on the edge of the sidewalk, and he eagerly extended his hand to her for balance.

 

Rey wobbled, panicking as she grabbed the car door instead. Her eyes not leaving his palm. He had done it in her dreams. The gesture was so insignificant to the people walking by, but not to her. 

 

"Are you alright?" He asked, withdrawing his hand. 

 

"I need to go." She smiled, pushing away from the car. Rey feigned composure as she hurried off. 

 

Ben did follow her this time and she whipped around violently as she made it to the gate. "You cannot come with me." She said, glancing towards her apartment. 

 

The light was on, which meant Finn was home. 

 

The man breathed heavily, trying to find the right words to say. He stared at her intently. "Will I see you again?" 

 

Rey parted her mouth to speak. She searched his face. "Close your eyes." Was all she said, feeling every muscle in her body stiffen as she slid past him. 

 

Ben watched her go, holding onto the gate. When she reached her destination, the man let the gravity of her words hit him. 

 

Fear crippled both of them. Rey didn't speak a word of it, and cleaned herself up for the night. She was lost in her own world, half listening to anything Finn said. 

 

She downed a cup of tea, trembling with overexertion. She  _needed_ to lie down, but it would be even harder now. 

 

It was impractical to be so drawn to someone after hours of knowing them. She laid in bed afraid to sleep. She wanted to have more time, to dig deeper and know him. 

 

Yet that little golden ring was a barrier. 

 

Ben stared at it as he drank away his problems. Not enough to be drunk, but just enough to be lucid and definitely not sober. Jyn had taken liberty in smashing the coffee table when he made it home.

 

She wasn't a bad girl. He brought out the worst in her. She deserved better. They both knew it. He deserved better than allowing their toxicity to kill them. It was noxious.

 

But, he sat on the couch, staring a the pieces of glass littering the floor. She threw her ring across the kitchen and kicked over the ottoman. 

 

He couldn't very well be angry with her when he had done the same, many many times. All he wanted was a refuge. The time he spent with Rey had been a sanctuary and he wondered if she had felt it, too.

 

Sitting in the wreckage of his sinking ship, Ben watched Jyn pack a bag and leave. Surely, she was going to Cassian with tears blanching her face. 

 

When he fell asleep on the floor, he didn't dream of things that once were or could have been. He only dreamt of that  _feeling_ and the way Rey made him believe that he was more than the personification of death. 

 

All he wanted was to press his lips against hers and consume the light inside of her. He would swallow her whole if living felt like her. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	3. Consolation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Endings and beginnings are a part of the cycle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a pretty long chapter with some waff and angst. Haha.   
> I am going to delete my accidental repost of this story sometime this week, also.   
> Thank you, as always.  
> Happy reading!

There were places that Rey's mind wanted to wander as she meandered the hallways of the St. Organa Hospital. Poe yammered,  dark eyes crinkling in delight as he played with his stethoscope. Everything was sterile, soft with the hint of antibacterials and acrid cleaning solvents. 

 

The artwork hanging to the walls were painted in soft pastels, matching the cream colored walls as they wound around towards the front desk. Poe ruffled his hand through his curly black hair and reclined with a  _plop_ into the swivel chair. 

 

His fingers tapped against the counter top as he plucked a clipboard from the cabinet. Rey held herself nervously.  The dark blue scrubs fit her small frame loosely, but she felt proud enough in them that it didn't matter. 

 

Finn and Poe had coersed her into applying for the internship, which was a successful venture. After all, she had the education for it. Implementing it had never really be her  _thing_. People were far different than her machines. 

 

They had souls and breathed and had feelings that made them whole. Seeing them suffer was why she  _didn't_ chase after a career. The pay was decent starting out, but all of it seemed so trivial when looking at their faces. 

 

Every wire, tube, or wrinkle told stories about each person. There were so many lifetimes buried in every patient. It was maddening that some of them would never be able to share their words, or set foot outside of this island. 

 

Rey exhaled, focusing all of her energy on the chart Poe handed her. His pen pointed at the names of her two patients. 

 

"Okay, sweetheart, I need you to check on this old guy right here." He said, his charisma naturally dripping from his pores. "He's sixty-three. He is an amputee, and--"  He mumbled, waving a hand absently. 

 

"He has several complications from surgery. He's not doing so hot right now. He's been awake all day and has no family left. Maybe give him the ole razzle dazzle."  Poe smiled. It almost made Rey sick to her stomach how handsome he was. He and Finn could blind an entire room with out brightly they smiled; especially at each other. 

 

"Am I taking his vitals, or---" Rey asked, furrowing her brows. She was certain she could do this. She wasn't allowed to do anything too aggressive, but it still weighed on her conscience. " Or am I just peeking in?" 

 

Poe yawned, staring at the Lighthouse clock hanging on the wall. These nights were an adjustment for everyone, especially since he did enjoy his regular sleep schedule. 

 

"Why don't you just check his vitals and see if he needs fluids and you can send the requests and get a lab done to make sure he's stabilized enough to be on his own." He stretched, winking at Rey before closing his eyes. He was well past exhausted. 

 

Rey nodded, looking around the nearly empty wing. She took a deep breath before heading down the hallway of identical doors. His room was on her right, at the very end. 

 

The door was propped open by the stop as his television flickered, bleeding light into the hall. She gentle wrapped her knuckles on the door before sliding inside. For a moment she closed her eyes. It was hard admitting that people hurt like this. 

 

Her dream-like world was far away. She had stayed particularly focused and tried to distance herself from the cyclical film replaying in her head. This wasn't the place for fantasizing over what was, or what could have been. 

 

It was to give life to people that didn't have much left of their own. Machinery could be born and last for centuries if you worked hard enough to maintain them. People were different.

 

And as she pressed on a beaming smile, she caught the weight of the man's eyes. They were warm. He was lucid, but very aware of his surroundings. 

 

"Skywalker?" Rey asked, glancing at his chart before plunking it on his end table. "I'm Rey. I'll be taking care of you tonight." 

 

The man grinned beneath his peppery beard, " You look like I feel." He chided. His voice was thick like gravel. 

 

Rey gave him an exasperated expression before buzzing about his fluids. She delicately checked the tubing, his heart rate, requested bloodwork. 

 

"I think I'm better suited for the day time." The girl grinned, longing to be in bed. There was the escapism. It prayed to come alive within her. 

 

"We all can't have what we want, now can we?" He grumbled, shifting himself upright. He watched Rey staring out his window towards the Riverfront that gleaned with the reflection of the neon lights. 

 

She needed one moment of peace. The past month had been hard and her mind kept wondering to Ben. This selfishness was not like her. 

 

"Am I dying or what, princess?" He asked her.

 

It snapped her back to reality and she shook her head. Her fingers gripped the bridge of her nose. "I am so sorry, Mr. Skywalker."

 

"Luke." He corrected. "You got something on your mind, little bit?" 

 

Rey forced a smile. Her eyes were heavy and she rubbed her cheek after cleansing them with the antibacterial solvent. "Just thinking about things. Life can't always be perfect, you know?"

 

Luke scowled at her for a second. He raised his arm, showing her the absence of his hand. The tubing in his nose fed oxygen to the better parts of his body as he reclined into the white pillow. "I am very aware. You don't seem like you carry the burden of it, though. You don't seem worn out by this job like  _some_ of the nurses."

 

"I actually just started working here a few weeks ago. Nothing special here, just trying to find my footing. I think you're going to be fine, but I'm not the doctor." Rey sighed, patting the side of his bed. 

 

She tried to offer him a snack or some juice while he waited on the phlebotomist. Luke shrugged it off and she admired all of the dark freckles that he gained with his age.  There was something spectacular about how human skin adapted to condition. 

 

She was about to leave when she stilled herself. The nagging in the back of her head got the better of her. "What kind of things do you enjoy, Mr. Luke?"

 

The man grinned earnestly. It seemed like no one had asked him that in a long time. He had been in and out of the hospital according to his charts, and seeing as he had no contacts, he had to have been lonely. 

 

"Books, plays, pranks." He joked, his laugh a rumbling guffaw. "I think most people overlook how basic human interaction can be some of the most fulfilling parts of life. Before you know it, you'll be old and unhemmed. Interests change, but the fundamentals are the same. I do like a good game of chess, it keeps me on my toes, too." 

 

It made Rey's heart swell with warmth.  _This_ was the feeling she loved. While some people found her  _insufferable,_ she hoped that people like Luke found her  _charming._ Or close to, depending on what adjective they chose was completely up to them.

 

"I'll play chess with you." The girl said sweetly, finding her attachments to human nature damning. She knew she couldn't truly spend time with the people she would be tending to, but if she could brighten their day just a little, she would.

 

Luke laid his head down completely. "I'm going to hold you to it. You've probably been in here too long, you know?"

 

Rey glanced at the clock and glowered. She abhorred time constraints. That was the only thing she missed about  _not_ having a job. The freedom was absolution.

 

"I'm not very good with time frames." The girl admitted before hearing the sound of footsteps.

 

"Is that the vampire?" Luke asked, peeking his tired brows.

 

Rey nodded, "Unfortunately. But they're gonna make sure you can get that infection cleared up so you can go home."

 

The man rolled eyes disbelieving it.

 

Rey quickly found out that Luke was an ornery man. She ended up tending to him quite often and that particular eye roll was a bad habit of his.

 

He also played a mean game of chess and offered insights into life and his past as an instructor. Rey tended to him like he was his own garden. He was withered and worn, but she nurtured him the same. 

 

The other patients loved her, too. She'd made friends with a sweet girl in recovery, who lost her sister in a car accident. Rose played cards and cried on her several days in a row. Rey didn't mind. All she wanted was to burst into their rooms and throw all of her own wants and desires into the dusty corner of her mind and sweep them under the rug. 

 

Ben had stopped manifesting in her dreams. It was a godsend, and she could focus on everything else and improving the lives of others. As much as she hated when the impression of him was absent from her dreams, she knew it was temporary. The anticipation dwindled, and she hoped it was some strange coincidence that she had seemingly  _stopped_ caring, or wondering about him. 

 

He was a married man. The man that wove himself into her hallucinations, was just that. A figment of her imagination, she told herself. It helped her get through the day, at the very least. 

 

Forcing him out after actually interacting with him had been the right call, she thought anyway. Rose told her --- in confidence of course --- that Rey had to embrace it. 

 

She confided in the girl, as she healed. Rose had had surgery and needed rehabilitation services. She kept a photo of Paige by her beside. The flowers her friends and family had brought were wilted. 

 

Rey ended up replacing them with fresh bouquets every few days. She brought Luke books and snuck him a few extra sweets at dinner. 

 

The other patients seemed to ask for her more often. Jumping in head first was overwhelming, but it kept her mind busy enough to distract her from the sleeplessness and the weight of her loneliness. 

 

Part of her felt caged, and she found resolve into serving others. She had hesitated for so long to dive in, and with a less than gentle nudge she did.

 

It was her  _big girl_ job with  _big, grown up responsibility._

Rey ran her hands along her face. She was off for four days now. Her first two weeks was a crash course into relearning techniques and routines. 

 

She let out a sigh as she threw her beaten up purse over her shoulder. Poe waved her off and the night shift doctor commended her. 

 

Holdo was a hard person to please, but she was gracious enough to push Rey for more. She clicked a pen in her willowy fingers, grinning crookedly as she read over her patients information.

 

Rey was ready to escape and run to the River and bathe in the cool evening air and spend time tending to herself. For the first time in many years, she felt like herself.

 

She never denounced who she was, or fought against it. Yet, here she was unclipping a badge from her uniform. She rode the elevator down to the emergency room floor. 

 

The main hallway was closed for renovations and she scowled. The detour would take her down the hospital's morgue wing. It made her cringe. She could feel the quiet and the cold wrapping around her. Even though the early morning sun crept through the windows, she found the darkness to consume her.

 

Every shadow became larger and heavier as she rounded the corner. Her feet pattered past the first door, blocked off by blinding hazard signs and warnings.

 

She closed her eyes as though the idea of seeing the door up close would be the same as seeing a dead body. 

 

Rey held her breath and scurried along. She wanted to open her eyes, but fearfully held them tight. 

 

It was then she heard a familiar, deep voice call to her. 

 

Rey stiffened and felt her heart leap into her throat. Turning, she found Ben with his hands tightly wrapped around a metal cart. 

 

He looked more worn than the last time she was him. It had been a while. 

The girl examined him like a patient now. His eyes were weighed down by bags, and his face was peppered with dark hair.

 

He loomed like Death, staring into her as they briefly made eye contact. 

 

"You don't look so good." Rey cleared her throat, knitting her brows together. 

 

Ben smirked at the audacity and leaned over the cart slightly. "That's what happens when you've barely slept for weeks. Some nights, I'm lucky if I get an hour or two." 

 

Rey scowled. "I have really gotten much either." She admitted, nervously chewing her lip. She looked past him, hoping she could get away from the bodies that were shelved behind the door. 

 

This hallway made her gravely uncomfortable. 

 

Ben inhaled sharply. The image of her seemed too real to be imagined. He could smell the softness of her perfume, even over the astringent cleansers. She looked as tired as he did, and he wondered if she had slept just as miserably. Little sleep didn't necessarily mean it was terrible, he supposed.

 

"Well, at least you aren't dead." He quipped, immediately reconsidering his joke. He wasn't very good at them. Judging by their last encounter, Ben wondered why she even acknowledged him at all. 

 

She rolled her eyes at him, wondering just how awful she looked right now. Her hair was falling out of the bun she put it in, her skin was rosy from sleep deprivation, and her scrubs were wrinkled.

 

"So, are you a maid or---" Ben asked, finally banging a fist on the morgue door. The curtain moved slightly from the other side. 

 

Rey glowered. "I did go to school to be a nurse. I may not be very experienced, but I'm not a glorified maid." She huffed. 

 

The door opened and a small woman with large glasses grinned brightly. " Oh, Little Solo thank you for coming so early. I'll have to explain everything later but we've got Mr. Antilles ready for you." 

 

Rey pressed a weak smile on as she peeked through the crack. It was so calm and quiet and blindingly bright in the room. You could have probably heard a pin drop. 

 

"You seem to be in a good mood this morning, Ms. Maz." Ben said almost charmingly. Rey bit her tongue. She had no idea why she was still standing there when all she wanted to do was run.

 

She was off work for Christ's sake. Seeing Ben hadn't been on the top of her priority list, she noted. Rey would have been lying to herself if she hadn't lingered for thaf very purpose. 

 

He was oddly kind and rude at the same time. Ms.  Maz seemed to enjoy his company, even though she was handing off death certification. Rey wasn't prepared for how casually the entire exchange had been.

 

She had taken it upon herself to wait at the end of the hall, almost hiding, as they loaded Mr. Antilles' body onto the gurney.

 

It was the first time in many years panic truly gripped her and pulled her down into its depths. Ben was so comfortable and reassuring that the man would be taken care of that it somehow rationalized her fear of Death.

 

It was natural, of course. She wasn't working with metal anymore, and this was to be expected. Ben caught the girl watching him and a blush settled over his features.

 

No matter how tired he was, or how sore his eyes were, she soothed the ache. She was a sight and he was grateful to see her freckles dotting the landscape of her face while she chewed at her nails.

 

Ben skidded down the hall. The cart clanked loudly against the tile, but it all seemed melodious as he decidedly followed Rey towards the exit. 

 

Outside, the hearse waited patiently. Rey looked away as Ben loaded the body and closed the large hatch. She held her breath wishing that she could have  _fixed_ this man or given him another chance, or another day. 

 

Ben removed his gloves and properly disposed of them before standing awkwardly against the vehicle. Rey crossed her arms trying to ignore what had just happened, and all she could do was think of how badly she had missed seeing Ben's face. 

 

It was selfish. 

 

She still didn't know him. A month without contacting him, let along dreaming about someone who looked so akin to him, had been daunting. 

 

"So, how did you end up at St. O's?" He asked, brushing a hand through his hair. It was the first time Rey saw how much his ears protruded.

 

It made her forget about everything for a moment and she genuinely smiled. "Your ears are so big!" 

 

Ben's face was immediately covered in a red film. "They're fucking terrible." He tried to cover them with his hair and shook nervously. 

 

The ring on his finger was still there, souring the mood. It was just another reminder that she couldn't have him. 

 

"I like them." She said, despite herself. Life wasn't perfect, neither was she.

 

"You don't have to be nice about it. It's not like you can't see them from space or anything." He said, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette. 

 

He didn't learn his lesson. Rey noted that as well. 

 

"I  _do_ like them. It gives you character. It makes you less terrifying." The girl quipped. A smirk crawled upon her lip as she watched him staring off at the cars behind her.

 

"Well, I knew that there was something insufferable about you." 

 

"It's not exactly proper to call out people's flaws, you know?"

 

"It would be nice if you stopped dancing around whether you want to talk to me or not." Ben said abruptly. 

 

It tore Rey drom her stupor. "Excuse me?"

 

For the first time, Ben smiled wide. No matter how much his nerves danced, he remained calm. He had spent days in front of the mirror preparing for this day. 

 

"You act like you don't want anything to do with me, but you've been hanging around for nearly an hour. If you didn't want to be near me, or play this hard to get bullshit, you would have been long gone." He said shakily. His deep voice wavered and it a chill through Rey's spine.

 

A blush settled on her cheeks. And her hands found themselves anxiously knitting together. She could barely look at him now. The euphoria of his closeness was sickeningly familiar and she hated it. 

 

He was looking at her like the man in her dreams. Those same dark eyes puncturing her like she was made of paper. She felt just as flimsy. 

 

" _You are a married man. "_ Rey emphasized each word as she watched him stamp out his cigarette on the bottom of his shoe. 

 

"You never actually talked to me about what my situation was." His eyes fell to her mouth for a moment.

 

Rey took a step closer, glaring in irritation. "I don't want anything from you." 

 

"I don't believe that." Ben said quietly, his voice almost inaudible. He took a moment to look at his watch and frown at the time. 

 

"Do you have to go?" Rey asked, letting her eyes flicker over his noticeable features. She almost screamed at herself for even asking. 

 

The man walked around the hearse and held onto the driver side door. " If you're so worried about it, why don't you get in?" 

 

Rey shot him an incredulous look. No one in their right mind would ever get into a car with a stranger. She made a mental note that he  _wasn't_ but if she ended up murdered Finn would get all of her belongings. 

 

"I'm sure I'll see you around, Rey." Ben took a moment to relax and exhaled completely as he plopped into his seat. His long legs bent awkwardly in the driver's seat as he palmed his face. 

 

He didn't know who this  _confident_ person was. The only thing he did know was that he would have killed to have slept long enough for her to manifest. 

 

To his surprise, Rey got in the car and took an exagerrated breath. " Do you have time for breakfast or in my case,  _dinner_? I mean, clearly after you take care of Mr. Antilles. I feel like I'm being super disrespectful right now." 

 

Ben put his hand on the gear shift, mouth hanging ajar. His thick brows quirked. He couldn't quite place what was happening. It really did feel like something pulled from his dreams. 

 

"Well, yeah, I can make..." He swallowed, "...time." 

 

She studied him briefly and shook her head. Despite the gravitational pull he had on her, she knew better. A defeated sigh bloomed and she opened the car door. 

 

"Look, forget this happened. I don't know what I'm thinking. I worked all night and I probably should just go and sleep for a while. You have more important things to tend to than me, and that's not just with Mr. Antilles." Rey said softly. Her voice was not much more than a rasp. 

 

Ben's confusion was almost beguiling.

 

 She opened the door once more and began to slide out. "I don't know what  _this_ is. I can't keep rationalizing that I know you, somehow."

 

"I--" he tried to speak.

 

"No," Rey turned to him. She was so close that he could feel her breath barely brushing against his face. "The fact is that I don't. You and I both  _feel something_. It's obvious enough. I am not important right now."

 

 He wanted to press his mouth to hers, if only for a moment.

 

He had wanted to the night at the park. She was was still an enigma and he searched for words to describe her. He wanted to see her as a human being, but the pedestal in which she stood, was far out of his reach. 

 

It was almost as if she was a ghost. She disappeared as quickly as she came. He took a moment to process everything that had happened during the morning. Even the newly risen sun could only shine so much light on the situation.

 

He blew out a breath and slowly wove through the parking lot. Defeat seemed to climb through him and he hated it. The back of his knuckles pressed into his right eye as he wiped away the sleep trying to form. 

 

A familiar sting picked at him. It was the first time in a long time that he wanted to cry. The existential dread of seeing Cassian first thing in the morning didn't help either.

 

He didn't even know what to say to him. The ring on his finger felt more like a memento than an actually bind. Jyn seemed so distant she may very well have been a star, burning out some light years away. 

 

The anger rumbled in his chest as he unloaded the body. Mr. Antilles sure got a show today. Most people got bad singing to the radio or NPR on the ride. They weren't usually graced with a seething British woman and a haphazard man-child. 

 

Ben shook his head at the thought. He was delusional if he felt for a moment that any of this was okay. 

 

Once he had suffered through his shift at work, he finally collapsed in his bed.  _Alone._

Cassian was smart enough to keep his distance and to not utter a word. It left the conflict inside of Ben as nothing more than the dwindling kindling of a fire.

 

His long arms wrapped around a pillow and he pulled it close. His suit jacket laid on the floor. One shoe still hung on as he finally crashed into a sea of light. 

 

_She was there._ She took his misery and drowned it. It was the first time in weeks that he had been graced with her presence. 

 

That becon of hope rose within him. He never wanted to wake up. He wanted to live inside of this cocoon and find some way to take her in his arms. 

 

Rey awoke from her sleep with sweat clinging to her brow. She didn't remember falling asleep, nor did she recall how she even ended up at home. Deprivation did awful things, and it inevitably left her with a yearning desire. 

 

As she laid beneath the covers, she wondered what would have happened if she had kissed Ben that morning. Her foggy mind replayed him leaned against the car, awkwardly trying to be cool.

 

Endearing as it was, she was going to fight it. It was a battle she felt like she would lose --- just like her moral compass. 

 

The next night nearly drove her mad. She could barely register what had happened, so she laid awake. Refuge was keeping herself up for hours. Seeing him, let alone letting him sink deeper into her bones, felt like a nightmare.

 

It had been weeks since she'd dreamt of him. And all of the sudden, they wove a strange tapestry of their alternate lives. The girl screamed into her pillow as she roused. 

 

A shower, a cup off coffee, and  _real clothes_ readied her for the day. It was almost 7 AM when she left. The sun was slowly rising, leaving a sliver of the moon as a reminder of what kind of night she had.

 

It hadn't surprised her that their paths had crossed. It had been less surprising that she had seen him at the hospital. It all made the dull aching behind her eyes seem bearable.

Even if she didn't want it to, it did. 

 

With great related, Rey buried her nose in the collar of her red fall coat. She stood out like a sore thumb as she took a walk. 

 

She knew where she was going. It wasn't long before she rounded the corner and crossed through the intersection where life seemed to weave in between the flickering lights and metal taxis. 

 

Across the street, everything stopped. The funeral home was so strange. It had its own energy and she found it in herself to ignore its placid voice as she passed the marquee. 

 

It was no surprise to see a man sweeping the entrance, dressed to the nines in a fine suit. It was dark, almost black but not quite. His hair was neat and slicked back and his facial hair clung to his skin like a film.

 

He looked at her warmly and smiled. "Is there anything I can help you with?" She noticed his English was some sort of symphony of his natural language and a learned one. 

 

"I'm just looking for Ben. I didn't know if he would be here this early." Rey said, nervously chewing at her lip. 

 

He looked at her curiously. It was as if his name made his shoulders stiffen. "He won't be here for another few hours." 

 

"That's fine. I was just stopping in to say hello, really." She said, looking around the man's short stature at the small statues. 

 

"Do you have a loved one?" He gestured, and she noticed his nametag was inscribed neatly. 

 

_Cassian A._

"Oh no, thankfully. I was just stopping by. I was just passing through." Rey smiled. 

 

Cassian eyed her for a moment before clearing his throat. He wanted to ask her more questions than it was worth. But he had no room to give the fire between his tumultous relationship with Ben any more oxygen.

 

Jyn swore she still loved her husband and she needed Cassian out of her system. Both of them new better, and Ben seemed to have found himself a distraction.

 

"I'm sorry if I was intrusive. It was nice speaking with you." Rey murmured, feeling the awkward tension as she walked away. 

 

She didn't quite understand why anyone could be so comfortable around death. It was natural, but it didn't change her feelings on the matter. She wanted to salvage every living thing and protect it. The things she couldn't save were always in the back of her mind, just like Ben. 

 

 

                          ---------------------------

 

Ben awoke to the feeling of familiar arms wrapped around his torso. He smiled in his sleepy state and pulled her close. 

Jyn was awake, staring at him intently trying to make sense of the things she kept secret. 

 

She placed a kiss on his cheek which tore him from his dreaming. His dark eyes fluttered, after a moment of struggling to open them. He tensed when he realized that Jyn was home. 

 

He rubbed his eyes, holding on as she shifted to see his face in the darkness of their room. Her breathing was even and her gloomy eyes were filled with a glassy sheen. 

 

She had been crying. He didn't even have to look at her to know.

 

"I'm so glad you're alright." Ben breathed.

 

Jyn bit her lip, forcing her eyes closed as she shook her head. "Ben, I'm not. I tried to stay here last night but I  _can't_."

 

The man released her and pushed himself away to sit upright on the edge of the bed. He ran his hands down his face as he stared at the red flickering lights on the clock.

 

"Then why are we still doing this?" He asked her poignantly. His voice was a hoarse timbre she knew well.

 

It was 7 AM and he could barely register what was happening. The murky wave of Rey swept through the raging sea of tiredness and he drowned in her.

 

Jyn sat on the opposite side, fumbling with the empty space on her ring finger. "Ben, I think I'm in love with Cassian."

 

Every word hammered harder and harder until the nail drove through his heart.

 

Instinctively, he wanted to throw everything he could get his hands on. It would have served no purpose but to escalate an already sour situation. It wasn't like he didn't know it was coming.

 

"Did you ever love me, Jyn?" Ben turned to her for the briefest of moments and stared at her as she swallowed a hiccup as she tried.

 

Silence was thicker than the tension and she nodded her head weakly. "I still do."

 

Ben pressed himself to his feet, blindly heading towards their shared closet. He grabbed her clothes with his wide wing span and threw them on the bed, hangers clacking as they hit the mattress.

 

"Get out of my house." He said in pensive, monotone voice.

 

He didn't look at her. Didn't speak to her again as he sat his ring on the nightstand. He showered, changed his clothes, and slammed the door as he left.

 

All he wanted was to be free of his feelings for her, no matter how dwindling they were. They still existed, and in his resolve, he realized they had tried for too long to fix something that needed to die.

 

His fixation with Rey felt so misplaced in that moment, but he wanted to see her. He couldn't focus on anything, but she seemed like she could at least piece him back together.

 

The man grabbed a coffee on his way to work. He chose to walk and feel anything other than the suffocation of his own life. He ended up plopping down on the bench outside of the shop with a newspaper. The cool morning air bit at his nose and cheeks. 

 

He sat brooding for a culmination of a few minutes that felt like hours. He wriggled beneath his black coat, barely raising his eyes from the paperwork. 

 

The moment he did, he saw Rey sitting haplessly on the other side of the intersection in her noticeable coat. 

She was reading a book, barely aware of the world around her. 

 

A blush settled on his cheeks. He wondered if she had noticed him, or if she had even wanted to. The weight of Jyn rolled off of him as he watched the girl. 

 

He wanted a fraction of the innocence she carried. The overcast morning even shone its only light on her, blanching her in a dusty hue of gold before it fizzled out again.

 

He blew a breath into the cold air when she finally looked at him. Her own cheeks as red as her coat. 

 

They peeked around the huddles of pedestrians as though they were children. He was drawn to her in a way that he had never been with Jyn. And the girl's traditional pull seemingly could cajole even if the worst of humanity. 

 

He couldn't place it. He couldn't remember anything, any feeling, other than the one he had when he looked at her.

 

Every time felt like the first. Every second felt too short and it made his head spin obsessively. He would sully her. It was a commonplace trait. 

 

She was life and he was the downward spiral of death, and he knew it deep down. He would slowly kill her. 

 

Ben knew better. 

 

Rey did too. 

 

Yet, as they sat on the opposite sides of the street. They knew that it was unavoidable. Whatever was pushing them together would stop at nothing to make sure they balanced one another. 

 

Rey was the first to stand. She looked defeated, but finally caved to the humming cries that defeaned her. Ben followed.

 

Both wandered down the street towards the crosswalk. One waited. The other came. 

 

Rey latched her arms around her chest, trying to subdue the rapt beating of her heart. Maybe it was time to say something. She could run him off for good and never see him again. 

 

Ben didn't know if he could, but seeing her stand so close did things to him he couldn't describe. There was nothing else but her.

 

"I dream about you, you know." Rey sighed, looking away as though she could hide from his scrunity. "I came to see you, but I spoke to Cassian. I told him to tell you hello for me."

 

Ben sucked in a breath. His body cemented to the ground as he felt a stinging in the tips of his fingers. 

 

"Well, that's nice. He is an abhorrent pile of garbage." He retorted sharply.

 

Rey glowered. It was becoming more habitual than she would like to admit. "That's not a very nice thing to say. He was lovely to me."

 

"He didn't steal your wife . " Ben scoffed, feeling the sensation of dread crawling just beneath the surface. He stamped it back down as he gestured for her to pick a direction. 

 

"I would suppose not. Had I known, I would have been a little bit rough around the edges." Rey wrinkled her nose. It broke her heart for him. 

 

"This isn't exactly a conversation I expected to have with you." Ben sighed, following behind the girl as he stuffed his hands in his pockets.

 

"It's life. There are things you can't control. I try to help control them, but there are things you can't save no matter how hard you try." Rey was thoughtful, casting him a glance that melted him.

 

"At the park, I envied how easily you could enjoy just existing. I've had years of therapy and still can't enjoy anything." 

 

"I think enjoyment is subjective. I also think you have to tend to things you don't want to in order for things to grow." She soothed him. 

 

"You sound like you've got your all together, but you can't be this much of a Mary Sue. No one can be happy all the time." Ben grimaced as he stopped in the empty alley behind the market. He didn't know where she was going, but it certainly didn't seem  _safe._

Rey turned to him, raising her eyes to meet the darkness ringing in his. "I don't and I'm not. I've been alone most of my life, barely remember my family and put myself through school and gave up pursuing a career because the idea of something dying absolutely demolished me." 

 

"I feel the same about living." He quipped, instantly kicking himself for even trying to be smart. 

 

"That's the problem. You're lost in your own world where nothing will ever grow. I've noticed that much about you." She saw the way his eyes cast downward towards his shoes and she sighed.

 

"I've thought about you a lot, Ben. You fit my M.O. I want to fix you, and I know I can't." She wanted to say more but held her tongue. 

 

The man nervously brushed a hand through his hair. "I thought that I was being irrational trying to get you to talk to me, considering my baggage."

 

"I cannot suture you together. I can help you, if you want. But I cannot fix you." Rey said quietly, letting her eyes fall on his mouth. She caught herself staring and flushed as she stepped back. That wasn't something she needed to think about.

 

"I basically kill everything I touch. So I don't expect much from you, either." He breathed, wishing her could drain her of that willful expression. "It's something I'm good at. I work with dead people because I'm such shit with living things, Rey. What does that say about me?"

 

She shook her head. "What do you want from it? You can think of a million things and never find something satisfactory, can you?"

 

Ben shrugged. "Just you." 

 

Rey stared at him for a moment too long. It was something she hadn't expected and her body suddenly felt too warm for her coat. She was certain she was the same shade.

 

Ben was too. 

 

He leaned in close, still towering over her. His hands still lurching in his pockets, not allowing anyone to see how tightly balled his fists were. 

 

She took in a deep breath, keeping her eyes transfixed on his. His dark hair fell in his face and hid some of his nervousness behind the curtain. 

 

"I'm afraid of this," Rey whispered. Her voice sounded a million miles away. "I've dreamt of you."

 

Ben parted his mouth, centimeters closer than he was before. "Don't be afraid." He murmured. His heart thundered in his chest. He was terrified. "I have had dreams with you in them before I met you. That means something doesn't it? Or do you think we're both just---"

 

"We're something. I don't know what. But, I don't know if I want to find out. I've tried to stuff it all down and I can't.  You keeping sucking me in and I can't get out of this blackhole." Rey said firmly. She felt tears pricking the backs of her eyes.

 

Ben swallowed his own voice as he tried to make any sound. He wanted to touch her. He raised his hand slowly out of his pocket. "I want to." 

 

Rey glanced at his fingers as they reached her face, cupping her cheek as she flinched. There was an electricity that punctured her with a visceral magnitude. 

 

It felt natural to be like this.

 

She wanted to run from it. She couldn't. 

 

For a moment, she stayed still. Her breath hitched in her throat. Ben inspected each mark on her skin and the way her eyes were slightly mismatched in color. 

 

When the dim sunlight hit them, they looked at those they were their own galaxies; made of amber, and golden flecks and seas of earthy tones. 

 

He had never seen something so welcoming in his life. It was the first time he felt like he could see into an entirely different universe.

 

He released her and became aware of everything around him. He felt so insignificant in her presence that he could no longer accept the distance. 

 

Every sound from the city came crashing in his ears like a crescendo of sirens and grating metal. Rey was a drug. She erased it all.

 

The girl placed her fingers on the flesh he had touched and felt the aftermath dancing beneath the surface. She wanted more.

 

"Can I see you again?" Ben asked again. The desperation in his voice more earnest than the times he asked before.

 

Rey leaned against the cool brick siding and took a deep breath. Her eyes never left him.

 

He outstretched a hand. 

 

"Please?" Ben asked, almost pleading. 

 

She hesitated before placing a quivering hand in his. She looked at him like no one else had. 

 

"This is temporary. This cannot go anywhere." Rey said, feeling overwhelmed by the weight of his presence and the way her hand melded with his.

 

She felt like she had been burned. 

 

She wanted to scream at the tension pulsing through the places they touched.

 

"As long as I can have you for a little while." He breathed, sinking deeper into the vacuous realm she had opened within him.

 

This was their balance. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Do You Know?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've incorporated some inspiration from Six Feet Under and I think if anyone has seen the series, they'll know immediately.  
> As always, thank you for your support♡

 

Rey laid awake for hours. She felt weightless in the confines of her blankets. The room was colder now, and the heater didn't properly kick on in the old building. 

 

She was too hot, too cold. She screamed into a pillow she held over her face. Ben wouldn't leave her mind. She scowled at that. 

 

As if admitting defeat wasn't enough of a farce, Rey already wanted an excuse to see him again. It went against everything she believed in, and it made her stomach sour enough that she could taste it. 

 

Rey wondered if he was thinking of her, pondering the possibility of seeing her as she was him. The night hadn't been kind and she had faltered in her dance with sleep. 

 

Her dreams were blooming with color and a man masked so she could no longer see his face. Yet, he loved her. He made it evident. 

 

It was otherworldly but still familiar, like the realm in which she dwelled with him in all of the incarnations prior. She rubbed her eyes and gave in to the steady whine of the heater sputtering. 

 

She got up and washed her face, changed into a jeans and a sweater with an owl. It was her favorite and grey as the sky that loomed outside of her window. 

 

It was early again. Six in the morning, to be exact. The sun was hiding behind the drab, rainy clouds and she sighed. The chill was thick enough to wrap her with its fingers, though deep down she hoped that Ben could somehow warm her. 

 

Finn and Poe had fallen asleep on the couch, watching some film still evident by the infinite looping title screen. The sound was far too loud and she took the liberty of turning the television off. 

 

Plucking her red peacoat off the makeshift coat rack, which amounted to two pegs in the wall. She shuddered at the cold on her way to the coffee shop and sat next to the window  _hoping_ that Ben would crawl into her vision. 

 

She sipped on her warm tea and listened to the life erupting with each passing minute. It was a hole in the wall, but it was brimming with life. The golden light was soft, warm on her skin as she lobbed her head on the palm of her hand. 

 

Rey could think of a million other things, or places she could have been, but this had somehow become her favorite. Scariff Funeral Home was across the street and soon enough, there would be an excuse to sitting in that corner for as long as she had. 

 

A smile crept along her face as Ben entered the building, flicking his umbrella outside the door before slipping in. It took him a moment to notice her.

 

Though, when his tired eyes fell on her, he tried to hide the grin sweeping over his mouth. His cheeks were flush and Rey fingered the curves of her own, knowing they were the same. 

 

She had left him in that alley in a tizzy. She had panicked and ran away _again._ No man, woman, or anyone in between had ever been vocal about  _wanting her._

Rey licked her lips only to find her mouth was dry. She could barely register the sound of his voice over the sound of the machines. 

 

He still looked like a giant as he sat in a small chair on the opposing side of the table. There was a strange energy that passed through them, leaving them quiet. 

 

Rey rung her hands around her warm cup, staring at the tabletop. Ben cleared his throat, causing her eyes to meet his. She banged her knee against the table and she hissed.

 

Ben made her feel like she was drowning. It was too early for it to register in her brain that she was making an ass out of herself. She liked to still justify it as being  _endearing._

There was a brightside to everything, right?

 

"Why can't you even look at me?" Ben asked, trying his best to remain calm. He hadn't slept well and having to stare at Jyn's empty side of the closet hadn't exactly been the kind of excitement he enjoyed. 

 

Rey rubbed a hand over her eyes. "I just feel like an idiot. I didn't sleep well. My apartment is old and it's freezing right now." 

 

Ben swallowed, chewing at hip lip as his fingers tapped at his cup. "Well, you could, um, come over to my place for a little while." 

 

His voice was soft. Rey didn't know if she should trust the offer. Giving him an honest shot felt more like a gamble than if she was playing penny slots. 

 

"Are you going to murder me if I do?" Rey asked. She took a sip of her tea, eye brow perked in bemusement. 

 

Ben's expression fell as he leaned across the table with minimal effort. "I mean, I do think you would look good as a lamp, but I don't think it's necessarily a goal of mine."

 

Rey glowered as his sarcasm. The deceased could have even felt the magnitude of force behind her eye rolling. 

 

"I still don't think this is a good idea if I don't get the guarantee of a drawstring." She bit, watching a smirk curl in the corner of his lips. 

 

"I don't think you think much of  _this_ at all." He gestured between them, barely sending so much as a passing glance to the building across the street.

 

Rey shrugged, "I  _do,_ actually.  I just find this whole scenario so absurd. You never expect to literally run into the man of or in your dreams." 

 

Ben straightened himself, trying to keep his facade less wanting than he truly was. "My therapist says the same thing, but I've been more of a nightmare for him." 

 

"I couldn't deal with depression. I think it's frightening. I know I've been lucky to have been spared the burden, but I look into your eyes and I see that you're dying." Rey said astutely, almost clinically. It was her own assessment. 

 

She raised a finger, gesturing between the hollows of his eyes. Her finger pressed against the tip of his nose for the faintest of seconds. It may not have even  _actually_ made contact with his skin. If it did, it was nothing more than a phantom. 

 

"That's a bit harsh to hear first thing in the morning." Ben inhaled sharply. "Honestly, I couldn't live like you do. I don't see things as vibrantly. I never have." 

 

"

Rey had almost forgotten the people around them, or the chiming of the door. The sound of the rain pattering against the window was a sonata. 

 

Somehow, the sound of his voice has melded together with great consonancy. It was like a dream in itself merely existing with him in this tiny shop. 

 

It was the first time Rey allowed herself to humanize this man. Each freckle, or marr on his pale skin seemed to compliment his long face and unbridled hair. It was messy and neat in a strange amalgam that suited his face. 

 

She let her eyes fall to his plump lips. Before she could think, Rey's small hands gripped to the sides of his face. She furrowed her brows. 

 

The girl hesitated before pressing her lips against his. It was electric. His mouth became hot beneath her touch and the cacophony of the customers barging in and out were silenced. 

 

He stiffened in surprise. Yielding, Ben reciprocated gently before the girl leaned back in her seat. The taste of him clung to her mouth. 

 

She looked at him through a different lens, knowing she had felt something. Ben did the same. Maybe he looked more hungry as they left and walked about into the rain. 

 

She pulled out a clear umbrella and popped it open and listened to the dizzying sound of the rain patter again it. "I don't think I should have done that. But I am very good at doing things I'm not supposed to."

 

He followed her beneath his own umbrella, looking down at the inky image of her through the plastic sheeting. She looked like watercolor, all distorted but very much whole. 

 

"I see you're good at suppressing your feelings." He remarked, following her as she zigzagged through the crosswalk. It was relatively void of people as she crossed the pavement. His hand fell on the small of her back as he glided behind her; ever looming like a ghost. 

 

"Not always, just for things that seem like bad ideas or could get me into more trouble than it's worth." She shot him a look before stopping in front of the funeral home.

 

She wanted to go inside and see what lived in those walls. But, she was too afraid of it. Ben noticed and reached out a hand to her.

 

She hesitated before she took it, knowing the coolness of his skin would dim the fire dwelling beneath hers. 

 

"Lucky for you, I don't have to be there today." He said, trapping her hand in his. 

 

The idea made her more relieved than anything. She could borrow more time with him, and she wondered how much time they actually had. In the end, the moment meant more than all of the turmoil that could come from this. 

 

"How did you know where I would be?" Rey asked as Ben trudged past the building. 

 

"You're predictable in a way." He said. "You have habits and I've noticed that you're bad ones are the way you are too afraid to allow the bad things happen and you need caffeine. It seems pretty obvious."

 

Rey grinned as she turned away. She had almost forgotten she held his hand as tightly as she did. He looked at her like she was his prey, and she looked upon his somber mien as though she could salvage him.

 

"You look like Red Riding Hood in that coat." Ben teased, taking her towards the park. It would have been less meaningful had he driven her around in his car. Rey needed open space to thrive, and he noticed it, too.

 

"Does that make you the Big Bad Wolf?" She asked him, causing him to stop in his tracks. He let go her hand to grip her shoulder, kneeling down to her eye level. 

 

"I'll eat you alive." Ben said, maintaining a seriousness. Rey rolled her eyes before his hand climbed her throat, then gripped her cheek.

 

"Why are you so morbid?" She asked.

 

He grinned crookedly, still staring into her eyes watching the emotion churn in her irises. 

 

"You're getting what you pay for, and I am exactly what I am. I want one second of you out of your entire life time. And I'm going to take every bit of it I can."

 

Rey pushed back, eyes curiously reading his expression and the shaky timbre of his voice. She knew better than to give in, but for a moment, she wasn't afraid. He was volitale, she could sense that. 

 

But she doubted he would actually harm her. His words were the most dangerous part about him.  It ignited a thrilling sensation inside of her bones. 

 

"Do you really think that I am really this calm, Ben?" She said, stepping a little closer. The weight of his hand on her cheek still burned the flush that formed.

 

"No. I think you're more than you're pretending to be." He swallowed. "You have to have something you want. You have a purpose. My purpose is ambiguous. Yours is much brighter than that. I'm not a good person."

 

Rey raised her head defiantly. Each of Ben's layers were thick and needed to be chipped away before she could truly see him. Whatever force pushed them together, she assumed knew that he, in some way, needed her just as much as she needed him.

 

They were polar opposites but tethered by this same loneliness and misplaced fiction they had written for themselves. 

 

"Do you mourn for your wife?" She asked quietly, seeing his expressive eyes wane in intensity. "Your marriage?"

 

He was quiet as he released her to realize he had been soaked by the rain. The trees began to sway and his umbrella had fallen, at some point, to the ground. 

 

"I mourn for her and for it." Rey said, " Your grievances aren't for what you had, but for what you never did. I sat wondering until I put two and two together. It doesn't equate to you being awful. It just shows me that you wanted more than she could give. And you could not give her what you are willing to give to pursue  _me. "_

Ben sharply inhaled. His world felt the waves of equilibrium fluctuating. He was no longer grounded, and felt every hair stand on end. The frissons ignited something that hit him to his core.

 

"I laid awake almost all night thinking of any way to make my problems congruent and somehow you can get inside of my head like you know everything about me." His tone was almost accusatory. He sucked his lips into a tight line of displeasure. 

 

Rey shook her head, " Then I can say the same for you. You're will to create something more for me than you ever would have for her. Am I right? You still don't know me well enough."

 

Ben stormed off. That pang of righteousness in his blood sent him into a downward spiral of conflict. His hands flicked back his damp hair, exposing his noticeable ears. He looked drowned, smaller somehow.

 

Rey chewed after him, pattering her boots along the empty sidewalk to the patches of grass that bled through. Life was tenacious, and so was she. 

 

"Tell me the last dream you had." The girl spat, balling her fist as he halted to turn to her. 

 

She stilled, tossing her umbrella to the wet ground. Rain slid down her face as she stood at the edge of the tree-line park entrance. 

 

Ben shuddered at the cold. "I was hunting a girl in the desert. She was alone. I was some sort of monster, I suppose. I was mechanical in places and had no real explanation other than I loved her."

 

Rey was hit with a wave of anxiety. She closed her eyes and tilted her head to the ground. "The night before that?"

 

"There was nothingness for so long and then it started again. It happens in short intervals. Why does this even matter to you?" 

 

"I told you I've dreamt of you. Do you remember a River?" She asked, eyes welling with tears. This was the most vulnerable she had felt since she could remember. Finn brushed it off as nonsense, but she knew better. 

 

Ben took a moment to breathe. He glanced to see if anyone else was around. They would think they were mad, like his therapist did. 

 

"There's always a River. There's always you." He said quietly, trying to formulate a way for this to sound less absurd. "Always."

 

He gripped her shoulders, staring at her rain soaked face. "When I wake up all I want is to take the feelings I have when I'm asleep and consume every bit of them. Jyn didn't understand this at all. I thought she was who I dreamt of, but you can't always trust your subconscious mind at all."

 

Rey felt the sting of hit hitting her face. "I'm really overwhelmed right now. I thought you would think I was insane."

 

When the realization came, Rey felt strangely. It was like being struck by lightning. "We can figure it out. I'm sure it's nothing. It's so silly. I can't wrap my head around it. Surely, this has happened to others."

 

"What purpose does it serve, Rey?" Ben asked. 

 

"I don't know, Ben. I know that I ran into you for a reason, and I have to follow through. I feel like I shouldn't because it won't end well."

 

"Fuck it if it doesn't. It doesn't matter. You wanted me to live, right? Let me kill you and you make me live." He said with conviction.

 

This wasn't healthy. 

 

Rey shook her head. "I don't need a tumultuous affair that ends in us being split apart."

 

Ben moved to walk away. He headed towards the River with his hands in his pockets, watching her over his shoulder. 

 

"We already are, Rey." He said.

 

That infuriated her. Any attempt to sway him was futile. She wanted to be consumed. Every second she spent following him made her ache for closure. It was a closure she didn't know. It was something far greater than her. 

 

She had been alone most of her life and it left a swollen wound on her. She felt bruised. There was something suffocating her until she met him. Though he drove her mad in ways she didn't understand, she felt like she would.

 

They stumbled around the park bickering about the constraints of their relationship before she had been coersed into going home with him. 

 

Everything was a blur. He guided her soaking body into the elevator of his building, watching her eyes light with bewilderment at the clean steel. 

 

She wandered down his hall, finding his apartment immaculate and warm. Everything minimal, sterile like the morgue in which he worked. 

 

It was dark, gloomy with a weight that belonged to him. He handed her fresh clothes, some forgotten by Jyn. She felt odd in the sweater and jeans, as they were a little too long. She abhorred that they belonged to someone else; not out of jealousy. Melancholy, perhaps, was appropriate. 

 

She wrapped a black towel around her hair, twisting it off as she sat at the oak table. Her eyes stared out the window at the river running at the base of the building. There were flickering lights strung along a string that swayed in the wind. 

 

She could see her building on the opposite side and her window in the furthest corner. It was unsettling the parallels they drew to her dreams. 

 

Ben sat next to her, fiddling with his new phone. He relented to fixing it up and turning the sound off when it came to life. 

 

Every time it rang, he stifled it. There was no picture of Jyn beaming at him from a time she was assumed to be  _happy._

Message after message came until Rey glowered. 

 

"You should answer it." She said, eating a piece of toast. 

 

Ben straightened himself and prepared as the phone lit up again. 

 

"Hello?" He relented, staring blankly at the table. 

 

"Hello, sir? Is this Ben...Solo, is it?" The thick accent was unfamiliar and similar to Rey's. 

 

"Speaking." 

 

"I am sorry to inform you that I will need you to come to St. Organa's Mortuary offices for identification." The man said sternly. It was clinical, like this call had been made many times before.

 

Ben had to do identifications on his distant relatives and occasionally for work. He wasn't spreading himself thin with concern. 

 

"There has been an accident involving your wife, Jyn E. Solo." The man voices hummed at her name and it stilled Ben. "The other body has been identified. Please do not panic. If you need an escort, we will send one."

 

Ben said nothing. He ended the call. For a moment he sat in utter silence as Rey's brows furrowed. She studied him, realizing that something was gravely wrong. 

 

He raised his eyes to her and stared at her clothing and sneered. It was then when her voice echoed through his ears that he flipped the table over, knocking everything onto the door. 

 

Rey skidded back, jumping to her feet. "What in the hell is happening?" She yelled, watching him rake his arm over the counter, breaking everything he came into contact with.

 

She looked to the door and back to the tall blur of a man as he slammed his bedroom door so hard that it cracked off the hinges.

 

Her pulse quickened and her head began to spin. She heard him punch a hole through the wall and scream as he tore through his house. 

 

Rey steeled herself and opened the door to find him laying in the floor, facing the ceiling in a daze. His lip bled. His eyes wet with tears. His breathing erratic as he tried not to vomit. 

 

She should have been afraid of the violence, but wasn't. Instead, she knelt down and took the towel from her hair and blotted his lip. One action he rejected as he swatted her hand away.

 

"Jyn died." He breathed, unable to process the emotional current coursing through him. "I fucking killed her."

 

Rey tried to reach around his head to cradle him. She need to soothe the ache. She knew she couldn't, but the question of mourning she had asked came back to bite her. 

 

"Ben, you couldn't have killed her." She said, feeling his hands latch on to her arm. 

 

"I fucking ran her into Cassian. If I had never been with her, she would be alive right now." He said, coming down from the rage that punctured him. It felt like a weight was crushing his chest. Nausea bit at him as he swam in whatever noxious sea claimed him.

 

Rey cried for him, for her, for a man she met for only a moment. She wished she could repair everything and rebuild it. She couldn't. Everyone and everything died, though she didn't accept it as such.

 

"Rey, some people are too good and have more of a purpose, so they don't get to live. People like me get to suffer in the aftermath. The least I can do for anyone is make them look like their families remembered." Ben said with a sharp gasp. 

 

"I cannot imagine the burden of this. I'm sorry." She soothed, holding him as blood stained the sweater she was wearing. Her awareness of her attire made her rattle. 

 

Guilt slithered like a serpent through the both of them. The exchanging of hands as they each drifted into their own realities; severed by an existential void between them. 

 

Ben let our a sound she couldn't describe as her hands helped clean his wounds. They slowly made it to the door when they were met by an officer with tired eyes. 

 

He escorted them to the hospital, where Rey stared wide eyed in the midst of the calm chaos. Everyone was steady and never missed a beat. The nurses and doctors kept buzzing with charts and chatter as they bounded up and down the halls. 

 

The morgue wing was busier than normal, and Dr. Holdo was the on call. She was was stoic, remorseful, but stern that it must be done.

 

She gave Rey an inconspicuous look before focusing on Ben and his bruised lip. It was split and she instinctively gripped his chin. "We'll clean this up for you." She said, notifying one of the interns to take up to the ER when they were done. 

 

He scowled, looking far beyond the white lights as Maz rubbed her sleep eyes and put her glasses back down. "Come on, boy. We want to get this over with. It will only take a moment and you can go." She said.

 

Her small stature was dwarfed by Ben as she opened the door. Her withered hands guided him in. The door closing with an ominous clack behind them.

 

Dr. Holdo brought her attention back to Rey, who held her ground. She wasn't sure if the woman was judging her, or if she was just holding her facade as steady as she could.

 

"Did you know Mrs. Solo?" She asked.

 

The officer that escorted them stood beside her, notepad in hand. 

 

"No ma'am. " Rey answered, fearful of what lied beyond the door. 

 

"Then why are you here?" Dr. Holdo asked poignantly. 

 

Rey sucked in a breath and brushed her hands through her damp hair. She wanted to run away from the inevitable answer, but she couldn't allow herself to do so. 

 

"I was with Ben." She said, afraid to move. 

 

The scrunity was evident, but Dr. Holdo just nodded as the officer cleared his throat. 

 

"How long?" He asked.

 

"Since 7 A.M." 

 

"Thank you for cooperating, Miss?" He raised thick brows at her.

 

"Rey Whills." 

 

There was nothing left to do or say. The trepidation stole her breath and left her as tired as one of her shifts. 

 

Holdo ushered Ben away before Rey could see if he was capable of being alone. She paced around the room for what felt like hours, but only accumulated to minutes. 

 

She wandered upstairs to her floor and was greeted by a flurry of familiar faces. Jess waved from her perch at the desk while Poe winked as he rushed down the hallway. 

 

Idly, she made her way to Rose's room to find it empty. A frown struck her as she made her way back downstairs. She pinched the bridge of her nose wondering exactly what she had gotten herself into. And how Ben seemed to know that he would drag her down with him. But, as she scurried across the ER entrance ready to run, she found him sitting at the exit. His mouth was stiched up and numb. She could see as much.

 

A fresh piece of gauze rested in his palm as he barely paid mind to her presence. The girl smiled weakly, unsure of exactly how to feel. This wasn't exactly  _new_ but it was a feeling that didn't sit well. Neither did the guilt. 

 

She closed her eyes as her body leaned against the glass partition. It was time for her to go. Her inner conflict had finally found resolve. 

 

"I'm going home." She said softly, finding Ben to be too distant to have even heard her. Her small hand gripped his shoulder, "If you need anything, I live in 66 A." 

 

Before she pulled away, his large hand clasped against hers. She stood still feeling his fingers crawl along the back of her hand. "Thank you for staying this long. It's for the best that you go. This is something I have to process alone."

 

His dark eyes met hers for the faintest of moments. It felt like another knife being driven deeper, and she felt the pang in her heart. Her hands instinctively protected it as she watch him walk into the night. 

 

She didn't dream that night. She tossed and turned, covering her head in the hopes she would drown herself in something better. 

 

She had yet to know something as painful and final as death; not in that matter anyway. Her parents were gone. A blip on the radar of the great expanse of her own life.

 

Whatever she forged was with  _her_ hands and Ben was raised to be the way he was. He was given opportunity and in that, he cultivated a sea of souls that somehow bended to him as he buried them six feet deep.

 

That was an ache and crumbled her. When she finally did sleep, there was nothing but a thrum and a plume of color like a pulse. It was a lifeline she grasped to, hoping it wouldn't let her go. 

 

It was when she awoke that things were  _different_. There was a paradigm shift in the way she rose to see the world completely different. Something  _called_ to her and this time she accepted it.

 

Rey pattered until she made it to the window, still finding night stealing the sky. The lights from across the River gleaned. The wind blew gently, and the faintest of stars crawled above her. 

 

She opened the window to find the placid water still, reflecting the orbs of the neon signs. Things  _felt_ different. 

 

Rey shook it off as she dressed and ate a bowl of cereal in the kitchen. Finn was gone. It was becoming normal for him to be absent and she sighed. Her tired head tried to wrap around the previous day when there was a small knock at the door. 

 

Hesitantly, Rey grabbed a bat she kept next to the door and stared through the peephole. She furrowed her brows trying to make out the person not quite tall enough to be seen. 

 

A few faint taps later, a small voice made it clear that it was a woman. It wasn't even day break. Was there an emergency? 

 

She cracked the door, chain still latched in place, to find Rose standing at her doorstep. Quickly, Rey opened the door. 

 

"Are you alright?" She asked in haste, still shellshocked as to  _why_ the girl was there, let alone knew exactly  _where_ she lived.

 

The girl nodded, keeping her hands behind her back and she rocked on her heels. "I just wanted to say thank you." 

 

Rey shook her head. "I did my job. And I tend to care too much. It's a mess but would you like to come in?" 

 

She turned to make sure that the house was actually acceptable for anyone to actually  _see_ it. But when she turned around, Rose was gone.

 

Panic slapped her like a hand across her face. She looked over the balcony, over the railing down the strip, anywhere and even inside of her house.

 

Rey ran to the bathroom and vomited. Immediately, she called Poe, who she knew would still be awake as his shift was ending.

 

When he answered, she took in a deep breath, still holding her head against the toilet seat. 

 

"What's the matter, buttercup?" He asked.

 

"Can I ask you something that may sound crazy?" 

 

"Anything." He replied.

 

Rey sucked in a breath, "When was Rose discharged?" 

 

Poe faltered. "Oh, sweetheart, I didn't want to tell you that she passed away last night after we found that her internal bleeding hadn't stopped."

 

"What?" Rey's eyes welled. She was afraid in a way she hadn't been with Ben. 

 

"I'm sorry, Rey." He said. "She told me the last night she was here that she wanted to tell you thank you for everything you'd done." 

 

Rey felt sweat heading against her brow. She felt like she was in a horror movie. Maybe she was just delirious? She wiped her face and thanked Poe before hanging up. 

 

She never explained why. 

 

As she got up, she found Rose sitting on the couch. Rey covered her mouth as she let out a scream as her phone clattered against the floor. 

 

The girl thumped through a magazine and Rey shook her head violently. "Why in the hell are you here?"

 

She was petrified. 

 

This has never happened before in her life. 

 

Rose smiled warmly. "You invited me in." She looked solid. She warm, almond eyed and her cherubic cheeks were full of color.

 

Rey slowly eased into the room, brushing her hair back as she extended a shaky hand. Her fingers passed through the girl and she felt that same pinching sensation burn her.

 

Rose leaned back, "That's kind of dude, Rey." 

 

"Wh-what? I don't understand what's happening." She swallowed, every hair stood on end while she backed away. Her eyes were wide with fear. 

 

Rose smiled, pulling on a necklace her sister had given her. "Oh, you don't know yet do you?" 

 

"Know  _what_ exactly?" She prayed Finn would be back from picking up Poe so this nightmare would end. 

 

"What you are." She said simply as the door opened. Rey practically through herself on her roommate. A burst of tears shot out of her while wrapping her trembling arms around her friend.

 

Poe nearly dropped his bags. She cracked her eye to find Rose  _gone_ again. 

 

"Looks like you've seen a ghost, Rey. Are youy alright?" Finn asked, pressing the back of his hand to her forehead. 

 

Poe went to the fridge and grabbed a water. "Sit her down. I think she's still overwhelmed from yesterday. That's a lot to take in."

 

He checked her temperature, like the nurse he was, and scowled. "Go lay back down. I'll stay up and fix you up real good."

 

Rey rubbed her bleary eyes and pushed them away as quickly as she had projectile launched herself moments before. "I'm fine. I'm fine. I had a panic attack."

 

Lying was beginning to be a bad habit. She couldn't  _exactly_ tell them what had happened. 

 

Poe forced her back to bed, leaving her alone. She left the door open so she could see into the other rooms if need be.

 

She didn't know if she could sleep. She needed to see Ben. Though, the more she thought, she doubted that he would be able to even speak to her. 

 

Rose's filtered through her mind. She let herself hang on every word. 

 

Whatever she was, Rey decided that she didn't want any part of it. Little did she know that she couldn't stop the fire that had already begun to spread. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	5. Crysanthemum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprises coming from the most unlikely of places. You learn a little more about yourself when you read between the lines, and Rey finds out that she has far more friends than she thought.

As the days trudged on, Rey kept herself distant. Her dreams were a flurry of warmth and melancholy faces that she knew she had seen. It made her head ache as she hustled to the end of her shift at St. Organa. 

 

Ben was always looming in the background, like Rose had. It had been two days since she had seen him. Two days since his  _estranged_ wife had passed. It didn't matter. A life was a life too many to lose. 

 

The girl sighed, trying to formulate the words written incoherently on her clipboard. She held her breath every time she zipped by Rose's old room and knew the same fate had happened to Mr. Luke. 

 

It made her sick like the first time she saw the girl on her doorstep; or a figment of her. She pinched the bridge of her nose trying to make the throbbing in her head wane. 

 

Dr. Holdo had been cold, but she wasn't any different than usual honestly. She was brisk, clinical to a fault with policy and procedure as she shooed the girl away from her shift. 

 

At some point, Rey had found her way to the morgue. She stood outside, pulling at the fuzz piling on her sweater. She gently rapped on the door, knowing that Dr. Maz would peek her little head out the door before dragging her inside. 

 

It had taken everything inside of the girl to stand in front of the door, let alone resolve to going inside. It was a feat she had to accept. She had to  _see_ and exist with death to understand the gravity of it; not sweeping it under the proverbial rug of mortality. 

 

Her eyes skimmed over the hall, half expecting Ben to be servicing the room. She knew better. She shouldn't have left him alone, but she could not stay. It was understandable. Ben was probably under insurmountable guilt. 

 

Rey was trying her best to stamp down the fact she had seen a ghost and the morgue was a testing ground. She may have just been crazy, which she almost hoped for. 

 

After a moment, Rey tapped the door again. This time Dr. Maz grinned brightly as she hobbled to the door.

 

 "Sorry sweetheart, I was taking care of a party old man. He needed to get situated for a nap." The small woman said, rubbing her hands with santizers. 

 

"Oh, it's... it's quite alright." Rey said, leaning ever so slightly to peak inside. 

 

Maz caught her, and perked a brow. "Is there something I could help you with?"

 

The girl tried to maintain her composure. She wanted to blurt out every bad thing that had happened, but bit her tongue instead. "No. I just wanted to see if Ben had---"

 

Dr. Maz closed her eyes in near exasperation, "Rey, I cannot give you information.  _But,_ no. She's still here." The woman said quietly. 

 

Rey felt sick. "I feel so awful about everything. I never met her. I hope that she's sleeping soundly now."

 

Maz squeezed the girl's arm. "I'm sure you'll being seeing her around." 

 

Rey flinched. "No, that's not what I want to hear at all." Her eyes met Maz's with an emotion she wished to expunge. 

 

The older woman pulled her into the pale lit morgue and she slammed the door behind Rey. She stood still, stiffened as her feet cemented to the floor.

 

The room was frigid as the O.R. It smelled  _different._ It looked like any other room at the hospital, save for the drawers and necessities strewn neatly about the surgical steel tables. 

 

Rey swallowed hard wondering how anyone in their right mind could even fathom working in these conditions. The sterility was even final. 

 

Maz swept around the girl, closing her lab coat as she grabbed a cup of coffee from her desk. She plopped down in her chair and flipped on her table lamp and pushed a metal seat with her stubby legs. 

 

Rey hesitantly made her way to the seat and sat down. She was morbidly aware of the pins and needles climbing along her spine. She could  _feel_ something strange, and she looked up at the blinding lights spilling from the corners of the room; though the desk sat in darkness, save for Maz's light.

 

The Doctor pulled her round glasses down and sighed almost contentedly. "Don't be afraid. I can tell you noticed already." 

 

"Noticed what, exactly?" Rey was perplexed, finding her life over the past week to be the most enigmatic it had ever been. There was no rhyme or reason. All she had wanted was to not be drawn to  _Ben._ She didn't ask for any of  _whatever this was._

"People that work with the dead know. I'm assuming you've had a few..." Maz trailed, gesturing beside her. "... _experiences?_ "

 

"Like ghosts?" Rey asked, chewing her lip nervously. The weight in the room seemed to shift and she was pulled into the undertow of the voices that somehow sang in harmony around her. 

 

Maz smiled softly. She was precarious, but she knew about otherworldly things most people logically shunned. "You're drawn to death, aren't you?"

 

Rey shifted, looking down at her lap as she shook her head. "I hate it, honestly. I think it's awful. I've never understood why it frightens me so much."

 

"Because  _you_ save lives. You impact them and make people grow into what they were meant to be." She said astutely, keeping her dark eyes trained on the girl.

 

The tension in the room smothered Rey. 

 

"But, you cannot do this without losing a few lives on the way. You have to make a stairway to the stars somehow." Maz reached out a hand and flexed as she waited for Rey's to enter her own. "There are things in this world that hide what they really are. You're one of them."

 

"Rose said the same thing." Rey blurted as she felt Maz clutch her palm. 

 

"Did she now? She is very fond of you." 

 

"Wh-why is this happening to me?" Rey asked, tears beginning to well in the corners of her eyes. She was more confused and frightened now than she had ever been. This was not who or what she was only days ago.

 

Her dreams were not worth the haunting presence around her. She could still hear the humming voices, however faint they were, of everyone resting inside of their metal coffins. 

 

"I cannot tell you your purpose. But I think that deep inside of you, you know the truth. Ben knows his truth as well as you know your own. You have to find it in there. And, look around you at those who need you the most." 

 

Her tone was somber, earnest. She already  _knew_ Rey from her countless lives before. They were interconnected, and their fates wove together like the threads in a cosmic tapestry. She never told the girl who she was ---  _never_. It would disrupt everything. 

 

Maz had gone by many names, many faces, many personas. She was at ease with  _this_ body as she nudged Rey towards her true self. Someone had to watch over her from the shadows, and that was the best she could do. This was her domain, and if she left for long, her fate would alter their timeline.

 

"I have no idea what is happening. My brain feels like it's melting. None of this makes any sense and I am screaming and no one can help me. I don't know  _you_ and I don't know any one person at this godforsaken place that I can talk to without sounding like a lunatic except for---" Rey's voice was a crescendo of anxiousness. 

 

" _Ben?"_ Maz placated. It was almost a relief that they had found each other when they did. She was getting awfully bored watching their paths cross and never intersect. Sometimes, Maz was guilty of pushing them together. The heavens punished her for it, but it was the thrill of the chase she enjoyed watching.

 

Even if they didn't see it,  _she_ did.

 

Rey went silent all the while. It wasn't long before Maz looked over her shoulder, knowing Jyn was present. Her pale blue eyes were as ethereal as the softness of face. 

 

Rey skidded back in her chair. She held in the same scream from before, and closed her eyes wishing the woman away. 

 

"You shouldn't be afraid. I know it is a bit tawdry to assume that someone like me could make anyone feel comfortable." Jyn said sarcastically, brushing a hand through her messy dark hair.

 

She was beautiful in a rugged way. Rey couldn't unsee her. She held her breath for a moment too long, nearly passing out from the lack of oxygen.

 

"Oh, Jyn, you don't have to be so hard on yourself. You and Cassian are going home soon. Be thankful that you weren't separated for centuries." Maz interjected, rolling her eyes back to Rey.

 

The girl was petrified. She uttered a sound that could not formulate words. Jyn glowered for a moment and eased around the table. She eyed Rey and inspected her features. They were always the same somehow. 

 

"It's a lot to take in." She said, gently reaching forward to brush a lock of auburn hair from the girl's face. "You look tired." 

 

Rey jumped at the fluidity of the contact. Her hand instinctively caught the place Jyn's fingers had touched, and it felt good. "How in hell could  _anyone_ be comfortable with this shit?" She barked.

 

Jyn smirked, crossing her arms over her chest. "Do you want me to like move things in your house or haunt it? I could do that since you were making moves on  _my husband_."

 

Rey was flabbergasted. "  _You_ apparently were with another  _man."_

_"I'm dead."_   She stifled a giggled. "I'm not an awful demon. Come on, now. You have to take care of him now. I've seen you and how worry drips off your face like sweat."

 

Maz waved her hands. "Girls, enough. You both should take a minute to let Rey process this." 

 

"I'm getting buried tomorrow, I don't have to do anything." Jyn huffed. "Besides, it's just a body. Cassian and I are going to be---"

 

" _Hush, Jyn!"_ Maz ordered, finding the fiery woman to be too mouthy. She could not alter this timeline for everyone's sake. 

 

"Fine, I'm going. I'll see you around, Rey." She said before she walked away. Jyn was like a phantom dissolving into the void, just out of sight like the blackening corners of someone's vision.

 

" _Anyway!"_ Maz sighed, shaking her head in irritation. "Long story short. You better get used to this because this is your life now."

 

Rey fluttered. She no longer felt sick, or beyond mortified. Now, she sat with a scowl burdening her features. 

 

"I don't want it to be." She said sternly.

 

"Too bad, honey. You don't get to decide this!" Maz countered almost gleefully, ushering Rey towards the door.  "Go find Ben. You've been in here forever." 

 

Before Rey could say a word, she was shoved out of the morgue and the door locked with a  _clack_ behind her. She stood in shock staring at the blacked our window. 

 

"What in the literal hell is happening?" She asked herself as she barreled out into the cool morning. The sun sifted through the burning color of the leaves, and she inhaled deeply. 

 

Maybe this was all a nightmare. She could lie to herself and say it was, but she knew better now. Around the corner, she saw Mr. Luke walking down the sidewalk. She stepped back and decided to walk home. She didn't need anything else to happen.

 

On her way home, Rey began to wonder just how many people she encountered were not  _exactly_ alive. 

 

Her eyes ached. She was so tired that she doubted that sleep would even come. Cautiously, the girl tiptoed into her apartment wondering if Finn was home. Much to her to her chagrin, he wasn't. 

 

It made her stomach knot as she showered and fed herself toast. She washed up Jyn's clothing, finding it odd that Ben would have even been married to someone like her. She was beautiful, steely, and succinct. She liked her and wished she'd know her while she was alive.

 

In her self deprecation, Rey mused about knowing her in death. She wanted her to find peace, but she also wanted to see how she interacted with the living.

 

 A sigh escaped her when she looked at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. It was pressing noon when she decided to leave. 

 

It wasn't hard to find Ben's car at the mortuary. It was shoddily parked in the employee parking lot and she hesitantly walked up to the main entrance. 

 

After the past few days, she wasn't sure how today was going to go, or what exactly she would find inside. This was the first time in her life she would set foot into a funeral home, and she cringed at the thought.

 

She had gone out of her way to look presentable. Even if the dead didn't care, she did. But judging by her interactions, some of them might. 

 

Her hands combed along her dress and she let out a sigh. She slowly wrapped her hand a round the handle, only to have it pulled open.

 

Ben stood tall before her, his lip still marred with stitches. He looked less broken than he did when the news broke, but a sensation of calm rolled over her. It was different. 

 

He was complacent, almost juxaposed with the door as he tried to find his center. "This is a surprise." 

 

Rey looked down at the small canvas bag in her hands. They had Jyn's clothing. She didn't know if she could hand them to him, but the girl had told her to take care of him in her absence. 

 

Ben almost smirked at the back in some sort of denial. "Really, Rey?"

 

The girl scowled. "It's not appropriate for me to keep them. Are you going to let me in or not?"

 

Ben sighed and stepped to the side. She got one foot on the polished wooden floor before the sounds she heard in the morgue pulverized her.

 

 "Jesus." She muttered. "How can you stand this?" It was crude and not thought out. Every voice of the occupants clattered amongst themselves. 

 

Ben furrowed his brows. "What the cold? The smell? The---" He stopped midsentence. "Nevermind."

 

Rey turned to him, giving him a flat expression. She could barely look him in the eye, knowing what she knew now. It was like a secret she had to bury just as deep as he buried the dead. 

 

Ben shut the door and lead her to the parlor, past the viewing rooms and the sea of flowers that filled the rooms with freshness. Everything was dark, polished, well manicured and comfortable. It wasn't what she was expected, but she never found belonging. 

 

She could still feel the crushing weight upon him as he processed his emotions. Reading him was nearly impossible. 

 

He took a seat in a Victorian style chair, crossing a long leg as he drank a cup of tea. Rey followed and sat across the room. A large, red patterned rug separating them like an ocean. 

 

The plaguing sounds were dimming in intensity, though one was obnoxious and she wondered if he could hear it, too. She cleared her throat awkwardly through the otherwise robust silence. 

 

"How are you feeling?" She asked softly. 

 

"Tired, really. I can't settle on any one particularly feeling." He said, turning his head towards where the loudest of the voices came from. He scowled towards the viewing room and let our a grumbling sigh.

 

Rey followed his vision. "Rambunctious bunch, aren't they?" It would take getting used to, and as long as she accepted whatever the hell was going on, the better it would be.

 

Ben glared at her. "You know I've ever that joke before." He said nonchalantly, getting up to go see what was going on. 

 

Rey leaned forward in her chair as she watched his willow-like limbs sway as he walked. When he disappeared, Jyn emerged. 

 

Rey flinched. She almost dropped the bag as she felt a cold hand pat her knee. 

 

"Long time no see." She said in a whisper. "Are you coming to my funeral tomorrow? It's at 9."

 

"That's relatively morbid." Rey said, just as hushed. She didn't understand any of it, still. Jyn seemed to be cautious all the same. 

 

"He's checking on Beru. She apparently left her curling iron on and fell asleep in her chair. She was a big talker." Jyn interjected.

 

Rey shook her head. "Does Ben know that you're  _here_?" 

 

Jyn nodded. "He came to get me this morning after you left. I'm sad to leave, but I know that he will be okay. Ben needs someone to guide him back to where he belongs. And my job is done. Cassian and I are soul mates. It was a matter of time, you know? Our time just ran out." 

 

A hint of melancholy and sweetness bathed her voice. It was soft, more tender than with Maz in the morgue. Jyn smiled brightly for the first time, "Besides, he can see me. I scared him this morning, but he knows that I'll be fine. The ferryman is coming and I'm ready."

 

Rey eyed her. "Jyn, what am I?"

 

The woman shook her head. "When you find out, you won't believe it. You have to become what you were meant to be."

 

With that, she was gone. Ben stood in the archway, staring intensely at Rey as she snapped her vision to him.

 

Neither spoke. He merely staggered to her, standing in front of her seated form. His dark eyes scaled over her face, "How long?"

 

His breathing strangled his voice of any weight. His heart was so loud Rey swore she could hear it over Beru blanching about a potato salad recipe that her family would never get. 

 

"Not as long as Beru has had that potato salad recipe." Rey scoffed, sinking back into her chair. 

 

Ben quirked a smile. A soft one, but it was there. He felt at ease for a moment. "I have no fucking idea what is going on." He said, running his face with his hands. 

 

"I'm scared of it." Rey admitted, watching his body fidget around the room. 

 

"Everything feels strange. It's like I should be afraid of it, but God damn, I am still more afraid of living." Ben rumbled, trying to make sense of Jyn and her presence and everything in between. "Picking up your estranged dead wife from a hospital morgue, only to have her pop up and say that 'oh, Ben, I'm doing great really fucks with you."

 

"She told me to come talk to you." Rey said, "I saw her in the morgue before I went home."

 

"I don't know how to feel." He looked at his feed. He wanted to look at Rey's soft expression, but it felt wrong. He could still feel her essence and the life around her that bloomed. Even the dead wanted to be around her and cling to her presence. 

 

Part of him envied it. The other part craved it. 

 

"It happened for the first time a few days ago when one of my patients came to visit me. I've felt absolutely insane since. I don't dream. I just...I just see colors and sounds and they pull me in." Rey said.

 

"I haven't slept since the accident. I know that I won't be okay. I know that it's wrong for me to feel like I do. And I know she's watching me and doing that thing that she does when she's right." Ben said, glancing over his shoulder to find Jyn hiding behind the serving counter beam.

 

The Spector peeped around the corner. "It's not my fault that you have a crush on her."

 

Rey's cheeks bled red.

 

"I mean, look at her. She did what I told her to. She's nice, I guess." Jyn chided, partially wanting to thump the back of Ben's head for the hell of it. He drove her mad when she was alive. She and Cassian had been through this before, though this was the first time she had ever been tethered to Ben. 

 

She didn't expect his mourning process to really override his desire to be with his other half. 

 

"I don't even know what you're still doing here. I'm glad that you're here, obviously but I wasn't expect my  _wife_ to be pushing me towards another woman." Ben bit, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "I work with dead people so I don't have to talk to them."

 

"Well, Cassian is pretty upset that he couldn't say goodbye to you. He said he was sorry for the way things happened, and so am I. But you have a life waiting for you. Don't let me hold you back. You haven't loved me in a long time, Ben." She said appearing closer. 

 

Rey found it in herself to move out of the room and  _see_ the woman that was  _still_ on about her ungrateful brother. 

 

In the parlor, Jyn took Rey's seat. "Sit down."

 

Ben sucked in a breath, feeling a sting in the backs of his eyes. He was grateful that no one else was in the building. He looked at the woman with a sorrow she could feel. 

 

"I'm sorry, Jyn." He muttered, covering his mouth with his hand. His face was slick, and splotchy from his flustered nerves.

 

"Most people would give anything to have the abilities that you have now. You knew deep down that this day was coming." Jyn smiled warmly. "We were not supposed to be together. I'm also very grateful that you are not screaming, like you know who did."

 

Ben wanted to speak but was shushed.

 

"Do not be sad for me.  _Do not be sad._ You have been miserable for as long as time has been. And you deserve at least one moment of happiness, and you have it waiting for you. You need to take what is given to you, and keep it safe forever. I love you, Ben. Don't forget that." Jyn would have cried if she was still human. She walked across the room, placing a kiss on his head. 

 

"Thank you for everything." He said quietly, feeling the tension in his chest ease slightly. 

 

Jyn leaned down to look him in the eye. "You'll see me again one day and you'll be over my shit just like you are now. Goodbye, Ben. Don't cry for me Argentina."

 

"Are you seriously quoting  _Evita_ to me right now?" Ben asked, feeling his lip ache at the stitching.

 

Jyn winked at him before walking out of the room. "Don't expect anything else, Ben." 

 

And with that, she was gone. He said in silence, or as much of it as he could. He cleaned his face when Rey pattered back in the room.

 

"Are you okay?" She asked, chewing at her lip as he nodded. 

 

"I think I will be. I think you would have really liked her." He said with a sigh as he got met her at the entrance. 

 

"I think I would have liked her a lot more than the old biddy in Room 2." Rey shuddered.

 

"That's pretty disrespectful, but I agree. She's .pretty terrible. Some people think that dying makes you a martyr, but after listening to this for the past few days, I'm vastly reconsidering how I view the recently deceased." Ben countered, opening the door to see the sun drenching the city. 

 

"I'll see you in the morning. At least we both know we're not entirely crazy." Rey said, blowing a breath out into the chilly air.

 

Ben nodded slightly, "Maybe we can figure out what all of this is. When I'm feeling better, we should talk about it, but I'm going to probably go take a nap and reevaluate what the fuck is going on."

 

Rey nodded. She didn't hug him, or touch him at all despite how badly she wanted to. It didn't feel right.

 

When she did sleep, he was present. He was as he was now. He was an awkward man with a busy life that he was unsure of. But it was strange that she was ushering gifts to him. They were small, almost fragmented pieces of light that he took without hesitation. 

 

He hid them from view, still separated from her touch. He treasured those tokens and buried them deep into the ground. She seemed to mourn them, not willing to let them go without grieving. 

 

It was when she awoke to the placid night that she had received a message on her phone. It was him. A smile crept along her face. Her groggy mind scoured through the phone until she found the message documenting the same dream.

 

She was unsettled. The whole thing was, really. Maybe it was all something that could be explained? She asked herself.

 

Though, the longer she stared at the words, the less and less likely she was to believe anything else. Her life turned upside down in the matter of weeks.

 

Rey was accepting what she couldn't change. She also had more visitors in a three day span than she had in years. Most of the time happened to be the dead, but that was something she would have to get used, right?

 

Whatever sense she could make of it would have to wait. If all of these unknown creatures said she had bigger plans, then it had to be better than this. 

 

Fear was replaced with excitement as she threw on her jeans. Her boot clad feet took her down to the River where the lights gleaned. 

 

Ben waited for her there. His sweater was large, even on him as he handed her an opened bottle of wine. 

 

Together they sat on the bench overlooking the water, staring at the lights draping across it. She looked at him as she took a swig from the bottle. 

 

Whatever was happening, she had someone along for the ride. 

 

Ben wrapped an arm around her and felt her warm engulf him. His mind was fuzzy as the tingling in his stomach. Rey rested her head on him, trying her best not to look up.

 

Busted lip or not, she wanted to drink him like she drank the bottle of wine. Ben found solace in the silence, searching the freckles on her face in the faintest of light.

 

He wondered exactly how long it would take him to feel half as whole as he did with her. He would suppress it, he was sure. He needed to grieve despite Jyn. 

 

They felt like they were trapped in limbo, dancing side by side as they traveled to another plane of existence. Nothing felt real but the passing moments they spent diverging. 

 

Ben threw his ring into the River that night, with a bundle of flowers Rey had brought. Hand in hand they watched the white chryanthemums spread out like stars. 

 

Tomorrow would be a test, but for tonight, they could pretend like they were nothing more than two people with intersecting paths. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definitely playing into SFU vibes. I also wanted Jyn to be humorous for the fact that Ben had to have that. She just flowed out that way. I don't want this to be severely depressing and it needed a little zing from my favorite Rebel Firecracker. 
> 
> Thank you guys a bunch for reading this.  
> ♡


	6. Persephone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Living and dying are an infinite cycle, but sometimes people live beyond it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys forever and always.  
> I hope you'll enjoy some more waff and feels.   
> ♡

The funeral was small. A handful of people came and made a fuss over Ben. He wasn't reactive and suppressed any untoward behaviors. He was proud of his composure, even seeing her well-to-do family being civil. They were far more poised than he ever expected, though her father's face hung like the moon. Every inch of it was thick with sleepless creases and splotches of sun.

 

She was buried in the cemetery down the road. Her headstone was nothing but a small marker, adorned with two midcentury stars. She always wanted to be stardust, and Ben had made sure when they had made arrangements that that was what she would be.

 

Rey made good on her promise, dressed in black as she stood at the back of the canopy. Jyn, herself, rested her head upon the girl's shoulder. She was painted like a doll and dressed in her favorite dress. 

 

"It does make me sad that they can't see me." She said, frowning slightly as she stared at the ghosts that haunted the morning. The living seemed more ghastly than any of the spectators that had yet to find their peace.

 

Rey sighed at this because she saw them,too. She shifted her weight, feel the cold breath that Jyn left upon her skin.

 

 "It's probably better that they don't." Rey said quietly. No one could even hear here over the sound of music spilling from the radio at the front of the chairs. 

 

"I suppose. I think this is the most upset I've been when I died. This lifetime was too short. It makes sense though. I lived it like I wanted." She said.

 

Rey furrowed her brows, letting her eyes fall on Ben. He was stoic, like a surly monolith barely moving as he began lowering the pearly white casket into the ground. 

 

"This has happened before?" Rey asked, feeling Jyn's form being drawn away from her. She wanted to grab her and keep her safe amongst the living.

 

Jyn crinkled her nose as she smiled, turning back as she walked the runway in between the collection of familiar faces.

 

"Endlessly." She said, passing by her parents. She brushed a hand over her father's pale, white hair and admired her hero one last time. Out of all of the people who could have raised her in this life, Galen was everything she could have asked for. 

 

Rey allowed herself to cry as she watched the woman's visage stand before her own casket. Her hands rested on it for the briefest of moments before she winked at Ben. 

 

"Don't forget what I said, Benny." Jyn whispered, climbing atop her chariot to the underworld as it slowly sank beneath the earth. 

 

When it was all said and done, Rey stood over the blanket of dirt and fresh flowers. Ben stood beside her as she knelt down, drowning out the thousands of souls trying to speak amongst themselves. Some young, some old. 

 

His shovel rested in the ground with his shiny shoe pinned atop the metal. He rested his chin upon the hand cupping the handle and looked towards the girl. 

 

"What are you doing?" He asked, drained from the entirety of the day. His mind was circling the situation as though he couldn't latch on to anything solid. 

 

Rey looked up at him, still aching from the wine from the night before. "I want to let her know that she's not alone." She said, pressing her hand into the soil. "I wanted to be here to make sure she got where she was going."

 

Ben closed his eyes, basking in the warmth of the sun that spilled over the clearing that centered the cemetery. He was glad that this was over. It had taken a toll on him and all he wanted was to sleep. 

 

He wasn't sure he had even dozed off for more than a handful of hours within the span of days. All he knew was that his head hurt just about as bad as his healing lip.

 

Ben shook off the ghosts that popped up here and there in his vision. Some of them he buried, others he was certain had never seen, but remembered from somewhere. There was a stillness as they watched him talking to the girl. 

 

One of them in particular was a young woman, dressed in a handmade dress. She looked like she had worked hard her entire life and her sunkissed skin was dark, dotted with freckles. Her collar was buttoned to her chin, and she sat upon her headstone in some sort of awe. 

 

Ben slowly glanced towards her. Rey stood, doing the same. 

 

"I know you." The girl pointed towards Ben's lanky body as he nodded. "You're the  _one."_

Rey reached for his arm. She was still afraid to really touch him. Every time they had she had felt things she couldn't comprehend. "I think it's time to go." 

 

Ben slithered away. "I am what?"

 

The girl grinned. "The one that can make everything stop hurting." 

 

"Excuse me?" 

 

"You stop suffering." The girl said, almost frowning when she looked towards Rey. "You, you try to prevent it and cause more."

 

"I don't know why everyone has been talking to me in riddles or codes. Is that a dead person thing?" Rey blurted, surely releasing that there were still living people roaming close by. 

 

Ben waved a hand as he pulled his shovel from the ground. He hobbled to the hearse and packed the car. "It isn't worth it, Rey."

 

The girl on the tombstone rolled her eyes as she scowled at Rey. She eased away and practically threw herself into the plush seat. It smelled like vanilla and formaldehyde and she grimaced. 

 

"I think we need to figure out a way to ignore or shut out everything around us. It doesn't really bother me save for how obnoxiously noisy it is now." Ben said casually. His mind still lingered with Jyn and all of the things she told him. Maybe he was being too passive, or unmoved by the ordeal. But, she was a strong headed woman and he always did listen. Well, most of the time, he admitted. 

 

Rey nodded in agreement as he finally peeled out of the cemetery. There was finally silence that befell them. She relished it as he flipped on the radio. She looked at his strong features, noting the stitches that laced his lips. They were ready to come out and she wanted to take advantage of it.

 

It made her sick that she had felt this way. She wanted to push herself through the barrier he constructed and tear down the civilizations of ghosts that stood in her way. 

 

For a moment, he furrowed his brows. Ben was deep in thought, staring ahead and the winding road that lead back to Scariff. Rey wanted to ask him if they could leave and go anywhere else. 

 

She was still nervous; tense around him in a way she had been ignoring. She closed her eyes for a moment and just breathed. The wave of emotion rolled through her like a storm off the coast. She wanted to divulge all of her energy into anything other than the strangeness around her.

 

How could anyone truly adjust to being able to talk to the dead, or see them, for that matter? It was a curse that she shared, and it was a simple satisfaction that she relished. At least Ben was cast along the same line. 

 

When she opened her eyes, she watched the funeral home burst past her vision in nothing more than a blur. She aptly turned to Ben and shook her head. "Are we not going back? Won't you get in trouble?" 

 

He shrugged his shoulders, taking his eyes off the road to absorb her confusion. "You asked if we could go somewhere else." He said as a matter of factly. 

 

Rey pushed her back into the car door, struggling with her seat belt. "No, I did not."

 

"When we passed 9th, you wanted to know if we could go somewhere. I heard you." He placated.  He almost mocked her.

 

"I never said that outloud." Rey sucked in a breath, thunking her head into her hands. "This is ridiculous. Can you read my mind now? Is this a thing?" 

 

Ben shot her a look is disapproval. "Maybe I can." 

 

"Fuck my life." Rey groaned, crossing her arms over her chest as he drove passed her apartment building. She was about to ask him where they were going, when he opened his mouth.

 

"Slide Mountain." Ben confirmed all of her fears in those two words. She wasn't dressed for the occasion, and she certainly wasn't sure it was a good idea to abandon all of their responsibilities. Driving a hearse all the way there didn't seem like a good idea either.

 

"I'll buy you some clothes, Rey. I really don't want to be anywhere near here right now." 

 

She couldn't stand it. She wanted to kick her foot through the window. The girl wrestled with her moral compass for a few moments before squinting at him as hard as she could. 

 

Maybe she could feel what he felt for a moment. Though, she wondered if she would have been better off not allowing this to persist. 

 

It took a few moments of focusing when she found  _something._ She felt victorious when she looked at him with her doe eyes and took a deep breath. "You miss your father?" 

 

Ben froze. "Sometimes. He used to take me hunting in Sundown." He squeezed out. Rey chewed at her lip as he sped through the shopping district. 

 

At the end of the line of exits, he eased her out into the shopping center parking lot. He pushed a handful of cash into her hands and went his own way. 

 

His hands lingered in his pockets as he shuffled into the store's automatic doors. Rey followed behind him, almost scampering as she tried to keep up. 

 

The cool air burst into her face. All of the red and white decor made Rey's insides light up with joy. She fucking loved Target. 

 

This mind reading thing should have been offputting,  but it worked in her favor this time. She lost Ben somewhere in the electronics while she dove through a sea of clothing. 

 

He came inching back when he  _felt_ panic from across the store, knowing that it belonged to her. Getting used to the changes was easy and neutralized with her around. He quirked his lips into a half smile as he watched her. 

 

She was dizzy. She was excited. Flipping over tags and talking to girls around her about this and that, made him sick to his stomach. She could find good in any situation and anything. And here he was sulking in his professional suit, running away from his life --- which he didn't have much of. 

 

He had lost a lot in the past few days. He gained an indescribable amount since then, too. He briefly closed his eyes, hoping that he could feel a fraction of the joy she radiated. Even in the haze of these new  _skills_ , she adapted. 

 

In the darkest part of his mind, he wondered if he was going to kill her in the end. He probably would, as he had everything around him. Even standing in the middle of a fucking Target, he couldn't wash the nagging notion that he was the fixture in place that death seemed to rotate around. 

 

A sigh escaped him as he walked outside. His loosened his collar and sat upon the red ball ornament and smoked a cigarette. He almost forgot how tired he was as he tried to listen to the hum of the cars on the highway. 

 

Part of him wanting to leave her there and run back to his apartment. He couldn't shake the feeling that still welled in the pit of stomach when he was around her. There was something there, otherwise she would have never come back, or  _needed_ his closeness. 

 

It wasn't like with Jyn. 

 

His hand creased across his leg trying to quell the relentless tapping. He was anxious to find out what was happening. There wasn't much he could do, and dwelling on it was utterly devastating. 

 

A pang hit him and he wondered when the last time he had actually eaten was. He hoped that Rey had, but he wasn't very good at taking care of himself. 

 

It wasn't long before she popped out of the store in a fresh change of clothes. She looked tired, but the exhaustion around her eyes gave her more character. She looked good with or without makeup on, and he liked when she wore her naked skin. 

 

More importantly, she did too. 

 

Her freckles were like a map. He liked to see all of the knooks and crannies that he could find or shapes he could make out of them like she was a walking Rorshach. 

 

She pulled on the red sweater and ripped the size label off of her fashionably torn jeans. She had on a pair of boots, which she stamped across the parking lot. 

 

She looked over her shoulder, pinning her hair in a sloppy bun. "You should probably eat something. You look wrecked." 

 

Ben glowered, almost irritated with their abilities. It was like being stuck in science fiction. It was too weird to be reality, but it was very much theirs. 

 

"I'm fine." He preached, getting into the car. Rey threw him a sweatshirt once she climbed in. 

 

"You're obviously a terrible liar." She said, watching him ball the fabric in his hands. "Do you think we should maybe go back? I feel bad for burning off and leaving the family at Scariff."

 

Ben rubbed his face as he leaned against the steering wheel. "Maybe. I don't think they're really surprised. Her family never really cared for me to begin with. It won't hurt my feelings and I'm sure it can't hurt theirs anymore."

 

"I suppose taking chances is something that you shouldn't think about too hard. You look like you need to gamble a little bit once you're feeling up to it." Rey said, sinking into the seat. 

 

She was slowly getting more comfortable being around Ben. He wasn't just the person she had dreamt about. He was his own entity, whatever it was, and she had to respect him for all of his flaws. 

 

"Literally gamble or are you being facetious?" He asked.

 

Rey reached into one of her bags. "I was just saying that you should take chances. It seems like you haunt places more than experience them."

 

Ben scoffed in response, cranking the car while she dug through her another bag. 

 

Rey longed for his closeness just as much as he did hers. It was like a thrum that radiated between them. She could feel it, and he could too. He was watching her, or watching around her, and it felt oddly peaceful for the moment. 

 

She had almost screamed when she found the cheap pair of scissors she had bought. Fumbling with the box, she tore it with her teeth. Ben smirked at her, watching her maul the stock like an animal. 

 

"Come here." She gestured. He looked perturbed.

 

"I'm removing your stitches. They didn't give you the ones that dissolve." She pointed out.

 

Ben did as he was told, moving the armrest. He perched upon it as she gingerly situated herself to up his face. Her fingers were warm. They were a huge contrast to the scissors hanging onto her thumb.  

 

She stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated. A blush settled on Ben as he waited, holding his breath. 

 

"It will probably hurt a little, but it'll be fine." Rey reassured him. She pulled tweezers out of her purse and slowly plucked the first knot. She took the scissors and cut the suture on each thread and could feel how reluctant he was.

 

His breathing was off, but anxiety did that to you. 

 

Ben mumbled before sucking his salvia deeper into his mouth. 

 

"Hold still." Rey closed one eye as she gripped his chin tighter. She was clinical and thorough as she worked the lacing out. 

 

She was proud that he did scream at her. Lips were tender and his were even more plump when they bruised. 

 

She discarded them in her designated garbage bag and cleaned her hands with sanitizer. "You're all done. I wish I had bought a prize for you being so good." 

 

Ben flexed his mouth, knowing it would still be a while before it was completely healed. His cheeks deepened with color. "I don't want anything you can buy." 

 

Rey looked at him knowingly, finding her own skin flush with a ruddy glean. "We shouldn't start this. This isn't..." 

 

"This isn't what, Rey?" He leaned a little closer to her. She instinctively crept back, reclining into the window. "This isn't _right?"_

The girl felt small. "I think all things considered, that  _this_ should wait."

 

"You talk about taking chances and you still cannot accept all of this fucked up shit happening and you still won't accept that you may have some sort of feelings for me?" His voice was heavy, somber as he spoke. If he had raised his voice it would have been like listening to the devil speak.

 

Rey leaned forward, close enough to touch him. Her chest rose and fell with each succinct breath. "That is exactly why." She said with growing ire.

 

Ben smirked, scanning her face before his hand gripped the back of her throat. Every muscle in her body tensed. Maybe it was the loss of everything, or the way the converged to create this paradigm, but Rey wanted to fall deeper into him. 

 

She could see it on his face; in the way his eyes scurried to hers and down to her mouth. He had been thrown into her by chance, or fate, or by the very dreams that they realized connected them. 

 

It was a moment of clarity when he latched onto her, pressing his sore mouth against hers. It was different than in the shop. It was eager, visceral in its intent. He parted her mouth, helping her search for words that she could not find on her own.

 

He pulled them out of her. Each fragment became whole within those flittering seconds of closeness. It took her breath as much as it gave him a feeling of livelihood that never knew. 

 

Rey delved deeper, probing him for some sort of answer. Her hands wound into his hair, drawing him further into the edges of her light. 

 

Ben flinched at how his lips stung against her heat. It was an honesty and a sensation that let him know he was alive. Rey felt like dying. She felt her heart skip as it palpitated nervousness. She felt callow beneath his touch and felt the pins and needles climbing the notches in her spine.

 

When she pulled away, she stared at him with an intensity that frightened him. He no longer felt weary of touching her. He needed to. He felt like his entire life he had sought for that one sensation to piece him together. 

 

In silence, he settled himself, slithering back to his place on the driver's side. The armrest separated them as Rey recoiled. There was always separation. In every life, every moment, every dream, it existed. 

 

They were more than human. And in that, they both found an answer in each other. The somber ride back to the city ate at them. 

 

Ben would catch her staring, and look away in embarassment. He felt so insignificant in comparison to her. He didn't have to say anything to her.

 

Their faulty connection would fade in and out if they focused hard enough. She didn't seem to like him reading her thoughts, so he didn't. 

Rey would catch glimpses of his subsconscience and it left her mouth dry. 

 

The burden she had bear in knowing drove her to the brink of madness. She needed to talk to Dr. Maz to know if it was true. She chewed at her nails while Ben relented to taking her to the hospital. The Catskills had to wait.

 

Rey practically ran into St. Organa, pounding on the morgue door like her own life depended on it. She didn't even give Maz time to open the door all the way before she forced her way in.

 

She shut the door behind her. Staring down at the small woman. "What in the literal fuck has happened to me?"

 

Maz shook her head and waved her hand. "You do not come to be in anger. I have literally been driven insane in the past two weeks. There is no way that a normal person could see fucking ghosts and read people's minds!"

 

The Doctor leaned against the counter. "It is not in my job description to delegate what you decide you are. You are one of two things, Rey."

 

Rey scowled, her body tensed and shook with upset. Ben didn't even knock as he entered the room. He was complacent until he subdued the girl. 

 

He placed his fingers on her shoulder, drawing her back slightly. He squeezed there gently causing her to flinch.

 

"Ah, the two of you..." Maz said, rubbing her eye beneath her glasses. "It seems you both got into a bit of a mess, hm?"

 

Ben rolled his dark eyes and hunkered down on the corner of the surgical table. Rey threw herself into the chair and let her head thunk against the table. 

 

"Why can I just shut everything out and be normal again?" She whined, "I want to go home and I want to have a relationship with  _living_ people."

 

Maz laughed a little. It was kind, understanding as she looked up to Ben. "It seems like you already know more than you're letting on. You're a plucky man, but I can see through you. You know that."

 

He stared vacantly, making a dumb face as he tried to figure out anything to say. Rey on the other hand was exasperated. She had seen something in his mind she had only seen in her dreams.

 

"Why are you even back in here, Kid?" A gravely voice churned. "I thought I would never see you again after I clobbered you in chess. Or, you know, you'd run away like you did the last time I saw you." 

 

Rey held her breath. "I didn't run away. I'm just really overwhelmed by all of the things happening and it keeps getting more and more difficult to handle." 

 

"This one over here seems to be adjusting to the news pretty well." Mr. Luke said, gesturing to Ben who looked over it. 

 

Maz conceded. "Well, I'll tell you this much, you two are going to have to piece your puzzle together as two now."

 

"I'm used to it, honestly. Dead people love me." Ben snorted, half bemused. 

 

"Does he give you trouble, because he looks like trouble." Mr. Luke gestured between Rey and Dr. Maz. 

 

"Every second of my life." Rey sighed. 

 

Dr. Maz and Mr. Luke chuckled as they looked at one another. The woman patted Rey on the back. "Go get some reason. The weight of the day is grinding on you."

 

Ben scoffed from his perch. "I don't think that that is the proper context for this, Maz."

 

Luke's thick brows raised and he half nodded. "You're entirely right. But  _I_ am ready to go and need some help." 

 

Dr. Maz gave Luke a scolding look as he waved a hand at Ben. The man stumbled on his long legs to where the ghostly man loomed. Rey raised her head and watched them interacting.

 

Maz was nervously chewing at her lip when look let out a raspy laugh. It was hearty and thick like the beard on his face. He held out his good hand and flexed it, as Ben reached out.

 

"You know not to do this." Maz huffed.

 

"This is grey area, Maz. I'm not doing anything." Luke chided. "Come on Ben. I'm ready to rest. Show me what you've got."

 

" _Luke."_ Maz warned, wanting to slap Ben's hands away as he followed Luke's direction. 

 

He placed a hand on his forehead and one over his heart. He was cold beneath his fingers, something he was very much familiar with. 

 

"Do what you  _feel. Close your eyes and feel everything around you."_

Rey looked concerned. Her heart clattered in her chest as she sprang to her feet. It was almost like watching this man die twice. 

She wanted to reach out and pull him back to the living world, just like she had tried with Jyn.

 

Her eyes fell on Ben as he thrust his palm through Luke's forehead and chest. There was a gasp and silence as he hung like a rag doll on his palms. Ben's hands burned at the contact, causing him to panic. 

 

Rey couldn't take much more of it. She tried to push Ben away, only to be knocked to the ground. Maz shook her head as Luke flaked away into a silvery pool on the ground. 

 

She scowled at Ben through her coke-bottle glasses sweeping up the ashes. "People make the biggest messes!" 

 

Ben swallowed, shaking his head at Rey. He breathed in nausea bringing pants. His fingers trembled and the girl reached out, but was denied. "Maz,  _tell me."_  

 

The woman looked up from the floor as she poured Luke's ashes out of the dust pan and into a silver urn. "No."

 

Rey slammed her hand on the table. "You seem to know a lot more than we do and maybe some insight might help us deal with all of these  _changes_ and the fact Ben can basically send people to the afterlife with his  _hands."_

"I'm going to be punished for this again, I hope you know this." The woman grunted. "You two have always been trouble."

 

Rey watched as she hobbled to the back of the room. She rustled out of her lab coat. It was a lackadaisical gesture that left the fabrix piled on the floor. 

 

Ben flexed his fingers, almost mystified by them. They trembled less as his mind checked out. He had lived through far more than he ever wanted. 

 

Sleep still crossed his mind as he glanced around. He felt tired, more so than he had moments before. He looked to Rey, who seemed to droop drowsily against the wall. 

 

Everything was heavy. It felt like a strong pair of arms crushing them, and their breath was stolen. Rey gasped as she fell to the ground. Ben faltered trying to catch her, falling in his own heap of limbs. He lay with his head beside hers, struggling to hold onto consciousness. 

 

Maz focused all of her energy as she felt their surroundings alter. No one else could really see it. It was better to produce the images in their minds than the entirety of the room. 

 

"I can't wait to go home." She muttered, furrowing her brows as the astral realm flickered for only a moment. 

 

Inside of the projection, Rey was there. She patted her body down, trying to see what felt different. It took her a moment to register where she was, or  _who_ for that matter. 

 

She tried to speak but nothing came out, save for a strangled cry. Words refused to form as she struggled with the heaviness of a white cloak. Ben did the same. They could feel one another but they were too far apart to see the other. 

 

The landscape was built of celestial spires of light and a begotten River than ran between them. It was an image they both knew well. And it felt like home. 

 

Rey felt her borrowed body move with purpose as her followers walked behind her. She couldn't control it and it frightened her. It wasn't long before she realized exactly where they were. Maz showed them the inside of their dreams, and pushed them into a flurry of emotion.

 

As if on instinct, Rey stopped upon the embankment. 

 

The realm between the living and the dead was a vacuous chasism. Falling was infinite, save for the clusters of lunar dust that somehow burst into mansions of stars, creating shapes beneath a wave of soundless vibration and color. 

 

Ben could not breathe. He was stifled as his limbs fell weightless. His hair fluttered, exposing the length of his ears and dampened him as though he swam within the waters on earth. 

 

Rey plummeted, her eyes wild with fire. She couldn't scream into the blackness that surrounded her as she fell beyond reaching. 

She extended her fingers until they burned, hoping to reach one fragment of Ben's stronghold. 

 

She felt the gravity of her space pushing her back into the pupil of the great void. There Ben reached for her once more, knowing he could not help her. It pained him as he saw her drown in the starlight that surrounded him.

 

It irradiated her face with golden flecks and white light that almost engulfed her. It was then that she found her balance, struggling to maintain herself as she lingered beneath him. 

 

She would not bow before Death, but she would embrace it. Her arms searched the space between them.

 

Their molecules were intertwined, fluctuating in time as she wrapped her arms around his legs. She held him steady as every memory they shared culminated into one infinite stretch of film; one that spread for centuries and beyond into a time before their atoms were born. 

 

Then there was nothing. No light. No vibration. There was  _silence._

Rey looked up to his face, seeing the darkness as she felt her way up his body. Her hands felt for his face as she read his features with her palms. 

 

It made him take his first breath. It was strangled, excruciating as the sound cut through his eardrums. It echoed in hers as she pressed her hand over his heart. 

 

Her mind bloomed like a familiar crescendo in a song. It waxed and waned like the moon, pushing and pulling him closer to the edge of madness. 

 

It was what they felt in their dreams. There were no earthly tethers to bind them to their borrowed bodies. Nothing but the transmission of energy back and forth remained. 

 

Ben breathed her in, consuming her livelihood. He wanted to touch her, absorb the energy and make it his and his alone. 

 

Rey closed her eyes, feeling the darkness filling her. The pressure was far too great to overcome, but she persevered. 

 

Ben pressed a hand over her mouth, feeling the softness of her lips as she tried to form words against his fingers. She felt hot like the stars that formed when their world was new. 

 

She had almost completely faded into nothing when a loud, noxious sound clattered in their realm. 

 

It was then a gasp of her own tore her away. She shot up from the ground, pressing her hands against her own sweat soaked face as she panted and pleaded for oxygen. Her heart was shrill and cried with each new beat.

 

Her eyes instinctively searched for Ben, who lay still beside her. His hands trembling as she reached up, searching to calm him. His large chest heaved until he found a rhythm of his own.

 

They realized they were no longer in the room they started in. They were somewhere completely different. Rey looked around, her vision adjusting to the warm light. She squeezed Ben's fingers, feeling the dampness of his palm.

 

Maz sat upon a leather chair, her glasses stilted atop her head as her hands knit in front of her mouth. She studied them briefly before clearing her throat. 

 

"You've gone by many names and Gods have longed to be you." She said calmly as she poured herself a glass of wine as she corrected her posture. 

 

Rey closed her eyes listening to the sounds soften, hoping that Ben would find peace so that she didn't have to feel this turmoil. 

 

"Hades, Yami, the Horned One, the Ferryman, the Beast..." Maz sighed, gesturing towards Ben as he finally found it in himself to sit upright. She handed him a glass of wine which he hesitantly took. He eyes it conspicuously as she walked to her cobbled fireplace to ignite it. 

 

"But you, no matter the name in which you go by, are the embodiment of Death in the mortal realm. In the human world, they fear you." She said passively. It was the seriousness in her voice that made Rey raise to question her, only to find her mind aching as though she read each thought.

 

Ben sipped the wine, staring past where Maz stood. He couldn't comprehend much of anything that she had said. Everything felt and sounded like static.

 

Rey, on the other hand, shook her head in disbelief. " What is happening? I am begging you, please tell me. I cannot do this anymore. I'm going absolutely mad." 

 

Her voice was raspy and sore. She tasted blood in her mouth and spat it out in her own hands. Ben seemed a million miles away and she couldn't believe the things she had seen or heard, for that matter. 

 

"I altered the timeline. You'll get used to it after a few days." Maz said, falling back into her seat. She was tired. All of her energy was depleted and this entire ordeal was going to affect her next incarnation, providing she even got one at all. 

 

"What timeline? Actually, where in the hell is this place?  _What_ is this place?" Ben asked, still lingering with his hypnotic state. He was unsure of how much he could trust this woman, or demon, or creature now. The things he'd seen and felt were not of this world and far beyond him.

 

Trying to formulate any cohesive thought was insanity. 

 

The woman let out a yawn. Her body was weak and needed to return to her designated space before it was completely drained. "I don't have much time. I have to get back to my starting point, but I can say that in Death, there is always Life that comes before it. You shouldn't have to guess as to whom that title belongs."

 

Rey's eyes met Ben's for the briefest of moments. She took everything in as best she could, trying to not lash out in a fiery spectacle. 

 

"My calculations have set you, by _human_   _time,_ one month from where we met in the morgue. The  _last_ time I did this, the other Seers seemed to think I needed to be stuffed away for a few centuries. Alas, I am but a fool for watching you meet. It'll make sense soon enough." She was somber. "The River will always run between you, but you always find ways around it." 

 

With that, Maz sank somewhere deep within herself before her body dissolved into the fabric. Rey ran to the seat and pressed her hands upon the cushions. 

 

"Fuck. Why does she always do this?" She asked Ben, as he followed suit. 

 

"Because she's a crooked old hag." He muttered. He glowered as he peered at the snow upon the ground. It was winter now.

 

Rey licked her lips. "Where are we, Ben?"

 

The sound of her voice was worrisome as she inspected his facade. All of his scars and bruising had vanished and she raised a hand to trace over the faultlines of where they had once existed.

 

He leaned into her touch, surprising her. 

 

"We'll find out tomorrow, or whatever day it is."  He muttered. He couldn't bear to look at the girl as his mind raced. "How can you touch me knowing what I am?"

 

Rey glanced around the room. It was cozy enough, unlike the morgue or her house where the ghosts had haunted. She brought her vision back to his, almost afraid to meet his dark gaze. He was a tempest, and she was certain that accepting him meant accepting what she could not change.

 

"I'm not afraid of you. I'm not afraid of anything now. How can I be?" She asked him, watching the fire dance behind his lumbering form. 

 

"Then what is it that you're really afraid of, Rey?" Ben stepped a little closer. "Is it all of this?" He gestured, trying his best to avoid invading her mind. It was harder in close proximity and he almost dreaded knowing what she really thought. 

 

Rey bit her lip, trying to wrap her head around something solid. She began walking towards the window, pressing her hands against the cold panes. "It's not you that I'm afraid of, it's what you represent. You're finality. You're the end. If I give into you or connect with you, then everything that I am will end." 

 

Ben was quiet as he followed her. His arms laced around her small frame, pulling her back against his chest. His face buried in the crook of her neck as she stiffened beneath his touch.

 

"You've seen first hand that you're the most important thing in entirety of the universe. You see everything outside of this window is you. You are oxygen to those trees. They're hibernating now, they're not dead. The birds, the snow, the wind, the birth of everything is you. You're not nothing." He said, hoping that his efforts weren't in vain. He was no longer tired and couldn't recall if his human body even cared. Rey's closeness was something he craved. 

 

It was unavoidable now. It was as if everything that transpired before then seemed so insignificant. Even the realm in between their worlds was only a fraction of a second. It felt like eternity, but passed like the blink of an eye.

 

"That's the weight I have to carry now? I have to live knowing that I am a creator and I am all of the stars and all of the moons and planets and all of the things inside on them?" Rey was burdened by it, pressing her fingers along the condensation to draw a pattern across the glass. "I wish I didn't know, now."

 

Ben closed his eyes, inhaling her perfume as though she had just put it on. She was sweet, floral beneath him and he gripped her tighter. 

 

"I've seen you  _living_ and it makes sense that you are. Don't be afraid of when this ends. I'll take everything you give me and keep it safe until the next time the cycle starts, and I'll find you again." He said with resolve. 

 

Rey sank into him, feeling his warmth for the first time. " Do you promise?" She asked thoughtfully, staring at their blurred reflection in the snowy window. 

 

"It looks like I've kept my promise throughout everything." He shrugged. " What do we do now, Rey?" 

 

She smiled for a moment, trying to gather her thoughts. It felt audacious. "I suppose we live like we are, as we are and try to find a way to accept it. We can't change it. So, what else is there to do?"

 

Ben recalled their time within the realms and all of the memories that scattered about his mind. If there was one constant, it was that the living realms brought them together when they could not exist. One would always find the other, or be drawn to a place where they could be housed safely to be together. 

 

He was certain he loved her. 

 

She was equally as certain. 

 

But, it didn't mean it would be easy. She was still her own person, no matter the incarnation. He could sense that. There would always be something separating them, and he hoped as he lingered for a moment longer, that she would stay. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
